Margot Philips

Margot Leonie Luise Philips (5 April 1902 – 30 December 1988)

• Contemporary New Zealand Painting and Sculpture 1962 at the Auckland Art Gallery (1962).[8] This group show toured other New Zealand centres during 1963.
• Manawatu Prize for Contemporary Art 1967, with
  Irene O'Neill, Freda Simmonds, Julia van Helden, Hildegard Wieck, and others at the Palmerston North Art Gallery (1967).^[9]
• The Paintings of Margot Philips: A Waikato Art Museum Exhibition at the Waikato Museum, a major retrospective of her works (1983).^[10]
• Margot Philips – Her Own World, a special exhibition at the opening of the
  Waikato Museum of Art and History in October 1987.^[11] This exhibition was held in a gallery that was later named for her – the Margot Philips Gallery.^[12]

Philips died on 30 December 1988, and a service was held at Hamilton Park Cemetery at Newstead.^[6]

Playwright Campbell Smith wrote a play based on Philips' life, titled This Green Land: Margot Philips – Painter, which drew on his memories of his own friendship with Philips, plus an interview with Tim Walker (then curator of fine arts at Waikato Museum) from 1987.^[6] The play was first performed in 2002 at Hamilton's Fuel Festival, directed by Alec Forbes, and in July 2009 a production, also directed by Forbes and starring Maria Eaton and Renee Casserley, was staged at the Waikato Museum to honour the 75th anniversary of the Waikato Society of Arts.^[6][13]

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