Doris Lusk

Doris More Lusk (5 May 1916 – 14 April 1990) was a New Zealand artist and art teacher, potter, university lecturer. In 1990 she was posthumously awarded the Governor General Art Award in recognition of her artistic career and contributions.

Lusk was born in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand on 5 May 1916. She was the daughter of Alice Mary (née Coats), and Thomas Younger Lusk, a draughtsman and architect, and had two older siblings, Marion and Paxton.

The family moved to Hamilton where she went to primary school. A woman who had an art studio near to the Lusks, encouraged her to paint. In 1928 the family returned to Dunedin when her father joined the architectural firm, Mandeno and Frazer. Lusk had one more year at Arthur Street primary school before attending Otago Girl's High School in 1930.

In 1933 she left high school, before she matriculated, and enrolled in the King Edward Technical College, the formal name for the Dunedin School of Art. Lusk enrolled against her father's wishes and later noted there had been 'one hell of a row' about her decision.

Lusk attended the art school from 1934 to 1939. The school was a member of the La Trobe programme which involved the importation of practising artists from England to staff New Zealand schools. These artists included W. H. Allen and R. N Field, who arrived in 1925 and had a major impact on the Dunedin art scene.

Lusk was taught by Charlton Edgar and took life classes under Russell Clark in his studio. Through a fellow student, Anne Hamblett, she met Colin McCahon and Toss Woollaston.

In 1939 Lusk and a small group of her artist peers in Dunedin rented a studio in the central city, on the corner of Moray Place and Princes Street. It was here that her first solo show was held in 1940.

In December 1942 Lusk married Dermot Holland, and in 1943 the couple moved to Christchurch. In Christchurch Lusk quickly became affiliated with The Group, an association of artists based in that city but with ties to artists throughout New Zealand. Although Lusk's painting output was restricted due to the obligations of caring for her young children, she quickly became established with special reference to her landscape painting. The combined exhibitions held by The Group members suited her better than striving to make enough work for solo exhibitions at this point in her career; as she later recalled "I did not paint in a continual professional manner. I painted when I could, and I would produce about six paintings a year, which was pretty good going in the circumstances."

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