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Collage Preparatory Sketch For Wee Mannie, 1980
collage; pastel, crayon, watercolour, pencil crayon, ink on paper
40.4 x 42 cm
MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina Collection, purchased with the assistance of the Canada Council Art Bank, 1982-16
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Ann Newdigate
b. 1934, Makhanda (also known as Grahamstown), South Africa - December 13, 2023
Drawings are often the basis for Ann Newdigate’s tapestries.
Setting two paradigms in dialogue, her work incorporates “the tension between the systematic quality of the tapestry process and the apparent freedom of marks made by pencil or paint in the drawings.”(1)
1. Ann Newdigate, Ann Newdigate Mills: Tapestry, Drawing and a Sense of Place (Regina: Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, 1982), n.p.
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National Identity, Borders and the Time Factor, or, Wee Mannie, 1982
tapestry; cotton, silk, wool, synthetic fibre
99 x 109.2 cm
MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina Collection, purchased with the assistance of the Canada Council Art Bank, 1982-15
As a recent immigrant from South Africa to Saskatoon, Ann Newdigate was drawn to weaving in the 1970s thanks to the influence of Prince Albert weaver Margreet van Walsem.
Continuing her studies at the Edinburgh College of Art, Newdigate created this Gobelin-style tapestry using a famous photograph of Métis leader Louis Riel that was taken after his capture at Batoche in 1885. According to Newdigate, “the tapestry has an autobiographical element because the date of the photo compares almost exactly with the date of one of the Boer Wars in South Africa when my grandfather was killed at Faber’s Puts.” As the title suggests, her interweaving of colonial narratives crosses borders, and raises complex questions about the erasures and appropriations by which national identities are constructed.
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Then there was Mrs. Rorschach's dream/ You are what you see, 1988
tapestry; linen, silk, cotton, synthetic fibres, wool, cotton
181 x 87 cm
Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank / Collection de la Banque d'art du Conseil des arts du Canada, 90/1-0261
“With the figure of Mrs. Rorschach, the artist points to the historians’ neglect of both women and tapestry. Although Mrs. Rorschach was a practicing psychologist, her presence has been hidden from history, overshadowed by her more famous husband, just as tapestry has been neglected by art history, overshadowed by the more prestigious fine arts.”(1)
1. Lynne Bell, Ann Newdigate Mills: Look At It This Way (Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery, 1988), n.p.
Ann Newdigate with members of the Prince Albert Spinners and Weavers Guild and the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology Weaving Program
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Another Year, Another Party, 1994 -1996
tapestry; wool
Mann Art Gallery Permanent Collection / Collection permanente, Mann Art Gallery
01.
Ann Newdigate, 1982. Source: Ann Newdigate Mills: Tapestry, Drawing and a Sense of Place, Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, 1982.
02.
A 1988 preparatory drawing for Then there was Mrs. Rorschach's dream/You are what you see. Source: SK Arts Permanent Collection, 2000-004.