Ans Westra (1936-2023) emigrated from the Netherlands in 1957 aged twenty-one years. She travelled throughout NZ capturing photographs of people and the local scenery, including Ruatoki near Whakatāne in the Bay of Plenty. Framed copies of several of her photographs of local Ngāi Tūhoe people can be seen hanging on the wall of the library at Te Wharekura o Ruatoki. The memory of being shown those photographs during a visit to the Wharekura has sparked this DigitalNZ story. 

We'll recapture Ans Westra's visits to Ruatoki during the 1960s, 1970s and 2013, followed by a summary of her journey as a photographer abroad and in New Zealand.

Part 1:  Journeying to Ruatoki

Ans Westra's photographic journeys included two trips during the 1960s and 1970s to Ruatoki near Whakatāne in the Bay of Plenty. 

1962-1963: At Ruatoki 

New Year's Eve 1972 & New Year's Day: Revisiting Ruatoki

2013: "Full circle" Tour at Ruatoki

Between February and March 2013, Ans undertook her Full circle tour to revisit several of the places she had photographed, including Ruatoria, Ruatoki,  Rotorua, Whanganui and Northland. See Sunday Star Times article (27 Jan 2013) by Hank Schouten: Westra retraces her journey of 50 years ago.

To mark the occasion, a documentary was made which can be viewed on Youtube (March 2013):  Marae investigates: Ans Westra's Full Circle exhibition returns to rural NZ (10.38 mins).    

And, yes, you can see those same framed photos on the walls of Te Wharekura o Ruatoki's Library! 

Part 2:  Biographical: Ans Westra (1936-2023)

Born Netherlands, 1936

Ans Westra was born Anna Jacoba Westra in Leiden, Netherlands in 1936 -  the only child of Pieter Hein Westra and Hendrika Christina van Doorn. After her parents separated, Ans' father emigrated to New Zealand. Ans' interest in photography stemmed from her stepfather:

"As a teenager I had a stepfather who owned a Leica camera, and he had taken a lot of photographs. That exposed me to photography. We went to see the Family of Man exhibition which made a big impression on me - the enjoyment, the variety of people. I also found I had an affinity with photography, I could express more with it than with anything else. I tried to carry on with drawing, because I had attended a craft course in Holland. We did a lot of drawing, but photography was really what I could say the most with, so I pursued it."  (2001)

Source:  Art New Zealand. "The eye of an outside: A conversation with Ans Westra", URL: https://www.art-newzealand.com/Issue100/ans.htm                   

In 1953, Ans moved to Rotterdam and graduated in 1957 from the Industrieschool voor Meisjes with a Diploma in Arts and Craft teaching, specialising in artistic needlework.  

JOURNEYED TO NZ, 1953

After graduating, Ans travelled to New Zealand at the end of 1953 to visit her father. Whilst staying with him in Auckland, she worked for eight months at Crown Lynn Potteries.  Her father had two more children - Yvonne Westra (born 1955) and Robert Westra - both of whom appear in photographs taken by Ans in Auckland in 1963. After visiting Wellington in 1958, Ans decided to live there. She joined the Wellington Camera Club and worked in various local photographic studios. Ans used a medium-format, waist-level viewfinder Rolleiflex camera to capture her images.    

1960s: International & NZ recognition

In 1960, Ans received international recognition winning a prize from the UK Photography magazine for a competition entitled Assignment No. 2.  The entrants were asked to compile a photographic alphabet.  Her grid included an elephant's trunk in the shape of  the letter J and a pair of feet in jandals for the letter M. Ans' 26 photographs appeared in the March 1960 issue of Photography, with 24 also reproduced on the cover.  (Source: L. McDonald (2012), Camera antipode : Ans Westra - Massey Research Online (PDF), pp. 60, 338)  

Ans first published photographs in New Zealand were in 1960 - two covers for Te Ao Hou, a magazine published by the Department of Māori Affairs.  In 1962, Ans began working as a full time freelance photographer and her photos continue to appear in Te Ao Hou, as well as other publications including the Education Department's School Publications - School Journal and Te Ao Hurihuri.  For behind the scenes insights into these early photography years, see interview by Damian Skinner in Art New Zealand: "The Eye of an Outsider: A Conversation with Ans Westra" (2001).  

Ans' photographs were featured as a 32-page photo-story in a School Bulletin entitled Washday at the Pā which was distributed to primary schools in May/June 1964. The images and text written by Ans were about a rural Māori family with nine children - four boys and five girls - living in Ruatoria. She spent four hours in the afternoon and early evening photographing the family who were living in a run-down cottage with no electricity or water inside while awaiting relocation to a  Māori Affairs Department state house in Gisborne. The family was given the fictitious name ‘Wereta’ and their location was given as ‘near Taihape’ to protect their identity. 

Various concerns were raised by the Māori Women's Welfare League and others, including the representation of rural Māori living conditions, which could be viewed incorrectly by the primary school children as being typical, and the misleading title as the family did not live in a pā. Consequently, the Minister of Education, Arthur Kinsella, announced in August 1964 that all 38,000 copies of  the Bulletin were to be withdrawn from circulation, including those sent to the schools and the 2500 copies set aside for sale to the general public. Caxton Press republished Washday at the Pā later in 1964, with some images omitted and extra photographs added, and an introduction by Anthony Alpers. 

Find out more: 

• Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa: Washday at the Pa controversary, URL: https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/952
• Sarah Catherall (2019),  "At times unwelcome, Ans Westra documented Māori when no one else was." Stuff.co.nz (30 Nov), URL: https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/117728062/at-times-unwelcome-ans-westra-documented-mori-when-no-one-else-was
• Wikipedia: "Washday at the Pa", URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washday_at_the_Pa

Returned to AmsterdaM, 1965 - 1969

Ans received a Certificate of Excellence from the New York World’s Fair photographic exhibition 'The world and its people'  in 1964–1965.  During that time she had begun a three-month relationship with writer Barry Crump. After her first child Erik Westra was born on 7 May 1965, Ans returned later that year to live in Amsterdam. The book Māori that she had been working on since the early sixties was published by A.H. & A.W. Reed in 1967 whilst she was in Amsterdam. It featured Ans' photos with an essay by James Ritchie.   

Living back in NZ, 1969 - 

When Ans returned to NZ from Amsterdam at the end of 1969, she received a QEII Arts Council grant to compile a photographic essay of New Zealanders. This was published by Alister Taylor as Notes on the Country I Live In (1972) with essays by James K. Baxter and Tim Shadbolt.  She also had work displayed in the New Zealand Pavilion at Expo 70 held in Osaka, Japan.  

Ans’ daughter Lisa van Hulst was born on 1 July 1973 and her second son, Adrian van Hulst, was born three years later on 4 Dec 1976.  Her three children would accompany her on her photography road trips in the school holidays during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In a later interview (2019), Lisa said her parents had separated when she was seven.

You can read an account of Ans' experiences from the perspective of her daughter, Lisa van Hulst, who was eight years old when she accompanied her mother on trips in the late 1970s. See article by Sarah Cathedral (30 Nov 2019) in Stuff.co.nz: "At times unwelcome, Ans Westra documented Māori when no one else was". 

During 1973-75, Ans was a tutor at summer workshops held in Wellington by PhotoForum which was an association founded by photographers in December 1973.  She was also present during the hikoi land march led by Whina Cooper and photographed the marchers outside Parliament on 13 October 1975. Her next publication, "Wellington: city alive", with text by Noel Hilliard, was published by Whitcoulls in 1976.  

1980s - 1990s

During 1981, Ans Westra captured images of protestors at Wellington during the Anti-Springbok tour demonstrations. That same year, she received a QEII Arts Council grant to compile a collection of photographs of Māori. The following year, an archive of Ans Westra's black-and-white negatives was established at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, which were digitised in 2014.  

During 1985, Ans' work was part of a touring exhibition 'Witness to change: Life in New Zealand' which also featured photographers John Pascoe and Les Cleveland.  The exhibition of photographs, which covered from 1940 - 1965, was organised by PhotoForum /Wellington Inc and the Wellington City Art Gallery. That same year, Ans published "Whaiora: The pursuit of life" which updated her earlier book "Māori".  The text was by Katerina Mataira with an introduction by Witi Ihimaera and was published by Allen & Unwin.  

In 1986, Ans was the Pacific regional winner of the Commonwealth Photography Award (1986) organised by the Commonwealth Institute, London. In September 1986 she travelled to the Philippines to photograph and then visited the United Kingdom during 1987 to attend the Commonwealth Institute's seminar and awards ceremony. On her way back to New Zealand, she visited the Netherlands and New York.    

In 1988 the Alexander Turnbull Library commissioned eight New Zealand professional photographers, including Ans, to make a documentary record of some of the Post Offices that closed that year. Between 1988 - 1991, Ans was elected President of the PhotoForum, Wellington.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, Ans undertook several artist-in-residences including at the Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt (1988–89), the Tylee Cottage Residency, Whanganui (1993), the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, Invercargill (1996), and the Otago School of Fine Arts, Otago Polytechnic (1998).  In 1995/1996 the Sarjeant Gallery at Whanganui staged Westra's post-Tylee residency exhibition Wanganui Seen 1960–1993, and published a book of the same name.  The Sarjeant Gallery has since held similar exhibitions of Ans' work in 2011 and 2014.

Ans also participated in a 1990 documentary project 'Pictures from the big A'  commissioned by the Auckland Public Library  to mark the national sesquicentenary since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.

During 1994/1995, Ans travelled to China, Mongolia, Russia and around Europe taking photographs, basing herself in the Netherlands. 

In 1998 Ans was awarded the Companion of the Order of New Zealand Merit for services to photography. 

2000S  - 

 In August 2004, the HANDBOEK ANS WESTRA PHOTOGRAPHS exhibition opened at the National Library in Wellington, then went on tour to other centres, Accompanying the exhibition was a website, book and a DVD. The DVD was supplied to NZ secondary schools for use with online teachers' notes on the Ministry of Education’s website Te Kete Ipurangi: Arts Online. It was produced in partnership for the Ministry of Education, with support from the Royal Netherlands Embassy Wellington and TVNZ Archives.  

In 2007 Ans became an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon artist.  A new edition of Washday at the Pā, was released by {Suite} Publishing in 2011. It included images from the first and second editions, as well as photographs taken of members of the same family in 1998 and text by Ans Westra and Mark Amery. 

Between February and March 2013, Ans undertook her Full circle tour to revisit several of the places she had photographed, including Ruatoria, Ruatoki,  Rotorua, Whanganui and Northland.  See Sunday Star Times article (27 Jan 2013) by Hank Schouten: Westra retraces her journey of 50 years ago and Youtube video (March 2013): Marae investigates: Ans Westra's Full Circle exhibition returns to rural NZ (10.38 mins).   

The Westra Museum dedicated to her work was established above the Suite Gallery on Wellington's Cuba Street in 2016.       

FURTHER EXHIBITIONS, 2020 - 2022

National Library included photographs by Ans in its 2019/2020 exhibition, Pūkana: moments in Māori performance, which celebrated Māori performance and performers across time and genres. 

During 2022, Foxton’s annual "Big Dutch Day Out", which is an annual celebration of Dutch culture, included an exhibition by Ans which ran from 23 April - 19 June. 

Over 80 photographs by Ans were exhibited at the 2022 Aotearoa Art Fair held in Auckland during 16-20 November 2022.     

Ans Westra passed away 26 Feb 2023

Newsmedia reported that Ans Westra passed away at her home in Wellington on Sunday, 26 February 2023. 

See RNZ (26 Feb 2023): "Acclaimed documentary photographer Ans Westra dies"

Ans Westra's legacy 

 The following comment was made by Piripi Whaanga (2015): 

"Ans is on record saying that, from the 1970s on, more Maori challenged her role as a Pakeha capturing Maori images. In the early days, there wasn’t that criticism because Maori told her they couldn’t see a Maori girl doing that sort of work. They thought it would be too lonely travelling the country by herself." 

Source: E-Tangata "Wash-day and other images", 15 Aug 2015) 

You can also read an account of Ans' experiences from the perspective of her daughter, Lisa van Hulst, who was eight years old when she accompanied her mother on  trips in the late 1970s. See article by Sarah Cathedral (30 Nov 2019) in Stuff.co.nz: "At times unwelcome, Ans Westra documented Māori when no one else was".

In an interview, Ans had said:

"In my photography, I'm looking for communication between people and the right moment. Catching the right moment in full swing. One that sums up an emotion." 

Source: Athol McCredie (2019). "The New Photography: New Zealand's first-generation contemporary photographers{ (Te Papa Press, p.172) 

PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

In 1982 an archive of Ans Westra's black-and-white negatives was established at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, which were digitised in 2014.  See Turnbull Archival Collections.

You can search DigitalNZ to see photos of Ans Westra's work: https://digitalnz.org/

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa has a collection of some 10,000 of Ans Westra's work prints: https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/agent/2438

The Suite website also features black and white and colour photographs: https://suite.co.nz/answestra/

See National Library of New Zealand's catalogue for a list of Ans Westra's publications over the years documenting aspects of NZ's history. 

For further biographical information, see Wikipedia and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.    

The following closing words are from Ans Westra:

 "I say the photographs are my personal daybook," says Westra. "They're my journey, and everybody has got a different story to tell, different things they're interested in. But I don't claim my New Zealand to be it."  

Quoted in an article by Bianca Zander: New Zealand Listener: "The eye of Ans Westra" (18 March 2005).  

(This DigitalNZ Story was updated in April 2023)