24 Facts About Ans Westra

Anna Jacoba Westra, known as Ans Westra, was a Dutch-born New Zealand photographer, well known for her depictions of Maori life in the 20th century.

In 1953, Ans Westra moved to Rotterdam and began study at the Industrieschool voor Meisjes.

Ans Westra graduated in 1957 with a diploma in arts and craft teaching, specialising in artistic needlework, and the same year, she left the Netherlands for New Zealand.

Ans Westra became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1963.

Ans Westra first encountered photography as a teenager through her stepfather.

Ans Westra began saving money so that she could purchase a high-end Rolleiflex camera, which she used for many years after.

In 1957, age 21, Ans Westra travelled to New Zealand to visit her father who had already moved to the country.

Ans Westra stayed in Auckland and worked for eight months at Crown Lynn Potteries; she later returned to take photographs of the factory in 1963.

In 1958, Ans Westra moved to Wellington, where she joined the Wellington Camera Club and worked in various local photographic studios.

In 1960, Ans Westra received international recognition winning a prize from the UK Photography magazine for her work entitled Assignment No 2.

Ans Westra lived with rural Maori for five months, photographing typical daily life, and in 1964 her school bulletin Washday at the Pa was published by the school publications section of the Department of Education and distributed to primary school classrooms throughout New Zealand.

In 1972 Notes on the Country I Live In was published as the result of a project Ans Westra undertook with support from the QEII Arts Council to photograph the people of New Zealand.

In 1982 an archive of Ans Westra's negatives was established at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

In 1998 Ans Westra was artist-in-residence at the Otago School of Fine Arts, Otago Polytechnic.

In 2006 Ans Westra was the subject of a 71 minute documentary directed by Luit Bieringa.

Bieringa who like Ans Westra emigrated to New Zealand from the Netherlands was commissioned by TVNZ to produce a 46 minute version of the documentary for TV One's Artsville series.

Between February 2013 and April 2014, Ans Westra undertook her Full Circle Tour to revisit centres where she had been particularly active during her career.

Ans Westra visited Ruatoria, Ruatoki, Rotorua, the Whanganui River, Kaitaia, Invercargill and Stewart Island.

Ans Westra faced criticism for her ownership of her images of Maori, that she built her career on images of Maori and that the subjects and their relations are not able to use the photographs without asking Ans Westra for permission.

In 1965 Ans Westra returned to the Netherlands to live until 1969.

Ans Westra was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and later in life developed dementia.

Ans Westra died at her home in Wellington on 26 February 2023, at the age of 86.

Ans Westra was the Pacific regional winner of the Commonwealth Photography Award in 1986, travelling to the Philippines to photograph and then onwards to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and America.

In 2015, Ans Westra received an honorary doctorate from Massey University in recognition of her long-standing contribution to New Zealand's visual culture.