page_title: Kate Sperrey
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Kate Sperrey / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir William Fitzherbert, by Eleanor Sperrey. Te Papa (1992-0035-797)
context_page_description: Eleanor Catherine Sperrey, also known as Kate Sperrey, was a noted portraitist from New Zealand who flourished at the end of the nineteenth century. She painted portraits of many of the most noted statesmen of New Zealand and has works in the permanent collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the Alexander Turnbull Library, Auckland Art Gallery, and the Whangarei Art Museum.
context_section_description: Sperrey returned to New Zealand in 1884, moving to Wellington, where her father was living and working as the Commissioner of Taxation. She set up an office and became an official portrait artist, joining the New Zealand Art Students' Association in 1885. The organization, based in Auckland, encouraged members to paint solely subjects having to do with New Zealand. In 1886, she moved her studio to Lambton Quay. She participated in numerous exhibitions including the Otago Art Society's shows in both 1886 and 1887, the New South Wales Art Society 1886 Sydney Town Hall exhibit, the Auckland Society of Art's exhibitions of 1887 and 1888, the Centennial Exhibition of 1889 in Melbourne and the South Seas Exhibition of Dunedin in both 1889 and 1890. 
  On 19 September 1888 in Wellington, Sperrey married Captain Gilbert Mair, whose portrait she had painted in 1886 when he had been awarded the New Zealand Cross. Mair was a soldier and civil servant, who had previously fathered two sons and a daughter with the Ngāti Tūwharetoa woman, Keita Kupa. The new couple had two children of their own, John Gilbert, on 5 July 1889, who died in infancy, and Kathleen Irene, known as Airini, (1891–1965), who would become a noted artist under her married name, as K. Airini Vane. After her marriage Sperrey, continued painting, signing her works as E. K. Mair.
  In 1889, Mair created paintings which earned first, second and third prizes, in the oil and water colour category of the Melbourne Fine Art Exhibit. Predominantly known as a portrait artist, she painted the likenesses of such figures as Sir Harry Atkinson, John Ballance, Sir William Fitzherbert, Sir George Grey, and James Macandrew, among many others. She was also renowned for her paintings of Māori subjects, some of which included Wairingiringi, a Ngāti Mahuta woman and her husband, Te Wahanui, a Ngāti Maniapoto tribal leader. In 1890, for New Zealand's Golden Jubilee, Musings in Maoriland, by Thomas Bracken was published outlining the colony's development of art and literature. The 400-page commemorative volume was illustrated with sepia sketches by Sperrey which were engraved in Nuremberg, Germany. Two of her last works were portraits of her own children.
caption: Sir William Fitzherbert by Eleanor Catherine Sperry. Whangarei Art Museum Te Manawa Toi
exif: {}