Ans Westra

The late Ans Westra was born in Leiden, Netherlands. She was a self-taught New Zealand photographer, with an interest in Māori. Her prominence as an artist and author was most amplified by her 1964 work, Washday at the Pa. Her obsession with capturing the world through a camera was instilled after encountering the famous Family of Man exhibition in Amsterdam. This utopian, quasi-anthropological exhibition, curated by MoMA’s Edward Steichen, toured the world from 1955 to 1963 and was a major influence on Ans’ work, as was precocious teenager Joan van der Keuken’s 1955 photobook Wij Zijn 17 (We Are 17), which depicts the lives of post-war Dutch youth.

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