Lovely Rita

Gaylene Preston's documentary on artist Rita Angus hits all the right notes: informative, visually compelling, humorous and touching ... A lively look at one of our cultural icons.

– Angela Walker in a four star review, The Sunday-Star Times, 14 October 2007

She was an amazing woman. And very very tiresome sometimes.

– Pauline Angus, Rita Angus's sister-in-law, describes Rita, at the start of this documentary

She didn't like selling her paintings ... you had to get her to meet the would-be buyer and they'd talk about things...

– Former art gallery owner Elva Bett on Rita leaving 600 unsold works in her home when she died

...she had a courage and an integrity and, in an almost nun-like way, that did passionately commit her to her visual intelligence.

– Artist Jacqueline Fahey reflects on Rita Angus

She was known to be a person who would pursue her own little projects, to the exclusion of everything else — she had tremendous focus.

– Jill Trevelyan, biographer of Rita Angus, describes her ability to focus

We live our separate lives for our respective arts. But I miss quarrelling with you. Quarrelling has been an important part of our relationship, as composer and painter, and I should like to come to quarrel again sometime, if it's possible.

– Rita Angus, in one of her letters to composer Douglas Lilburn

I haven't any desire for success or the limelight, and no further wish to explain myself. Neither do I wish to play, any more than I can help, a part in the world of petty tyranny, greed and murder, and war ... My pacifism and my paintings are now closely linked.

– Rita Angus, in one of her letters to composer Douglas Lilburn

...she went through this period of feeling she had to be deprived of something: whether it was sleep, or food, or peoples' company, to get into the right — well I would call it mood — for what she was planning to do, as far as her art was concerned.

– Pauline Angus, Rita Angus's sister-in-law, talks about Rita

She was a very honest person about herself ... She wasn't afraid to paint herself as she really is — warts and all.

– Photographer Marti Friedlander on Rita Angus, near the end of this documentary

I live alone to work ... My friends are very few now, but more quality. Friends, family and works of art are the only reasons why I live.

– Rita Angus

One of the things that really struck me was the fact that Douglas [Lilburn] had kept these letters. And not just kept these letters, but annotated them. Some of these letters he'd write on it 'biographical letter — very important'.

– Jill Trevelyan, author of book Rita Angus - An Artist's Life

[The] opening section of Lovely Rita beautifully encapsulates the notion of the quintessential New Zealand artist being a grassroots character, at one with ordinary people.

– Writer Russell Campbell in his 2011 book Observations: Studies in New Zealand Documentary, page 155

...the life that Rita chose, to be a full-time artist and to be a woman who lived alone for the sake of being a full-time artist, there was really no precedent for that at all.

– Composer Jack Body

More than 300 letters from Rita to Douglas were in his possession when he died recently and these form a moving and sometimes startling personal commentary from the artist herself which illuminates a lifetime of painting.

– Press release for Lovely Rita, The Big Idea website, 16 November 2007