Lois White

Who was Lois White?

Anna Lois White, known in the art world as Lois White, was a New Zealand painter of the modernist school. She taught at the Elam Art School of the University of Auckland from 1927 until 1963.

Lois was the youngest of four children of Auckland architect Arthur Herbert White and Annie White. Her maternal grandfather ran W. Phillips & Sons, an importer of prints and artists' materials. She attended Epsom Girls' Grammar School from 1919-1922, excelling at all subjects, moving on to study at Elam in 1923.

In 1927 she became a part-time tutor at Elam, teaching the junior drawing classes, while at the same time taking a part-time position teaching art at Takapuna Grammar School. From 1934 she was full-time at Elam until her retirement in January 1963.

Her career as a painter continued in concurrently with her teaching career, being accepted as a full "Working Member" of the Auckland Society of Arts in 1931 and exhibiting regularly with the Society.

Lois was one of the founders of the New Group in 1948, a somewhat conservative group of artists concentrating on traditional form and draughtsmanship, somewhat in opposition to younger artists of the time who were pursuing modernist and abstract forms. She continued to be viewed as a somewhat conservative artist, even in her own opinion, until her work was reappraised through solo exhibitions in 1977 and 1994.