The pandemic rarely delivers positive spin-offs, but for art lovers in Wellington, they'll benefit from a major Rita Angus exhibition that was meant to be heading to the United Kingdom.
The show at the Royal Academy in London had to be cancelled due to Covid, and now the 70 Angus art works are on display at Te Papa.
It includes six acquisitions by the museum of works done by the iconic 20th century New Zealand artist.
One includes The Aviatrix a 1933 portrait of Angus' sister, who was the first female pilot in the East Coast Aeronautical Club.
It's been in private hands for the past 78 years, but in 2020 was bought by Te Papa for an undisclosed sum.
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But The Aviatrix has needed a little TLC at Te Papa's conservation lab to remove a mysterious white haze on the surface.
Conservator Linda Waters said it initially looked like a "mould-like quality" but under a microscope she could see it was in fact small areas of "crystalline" in the varnish.
It was caused by the type of paint Angus used and was made worse when the picture changed environments from a house to the museum.
"It's an unusual problem this one and it's not one you would come across very often," said Waters.
Fellow conservator Tijana Cvetkovic said to fix the haze they had to test lots of different materials before coming up with a suitable varnish. "That saturated out those crystalised formations, so that made them not viewable," she said.
Now The Aviatrix hangs in Te Papa, good as new, alongside the other Angus gems that cover feminism, pacifism and the environment.
But Angus, a feminist, might be disappointed to know works by women make up just 19 percent of Te Papa's collection.
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"It's a percentage we are madly trying to change," said Charlotte Davy, Te Papa's head of art.
But she said it's going to take decades to achieve any sort of balance.
"It's slow hard work because you are flushing women out of hidden history and bringing them into the light," said Davy.
Rita Angus' works are certainly in the light, and on show until late April.
