Elva Bett

Elva Lilian Bett (née Brown, 30 March 1918 – 6 December 2016) was a New Zealand artist, art historian and art gallery director.

Biography Bett was born Elva Lilian Brown in Dunedin, New Zealand, on 30 March 1918, the daughter of Lily May Marion Brown and Herbert Patrick Flowerdew Brown. In 1940, she became engaged to John James Bett, and the couple later married.

An artist in her own right, Bett focused on painting and printmaking and considered herself a purist: "When all is said and done, I think there is a content in painting which goes beyond just the pictorial or the gimmicky or the adventuresome or the experimental". Bett was an artist member New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts and an honourable member New Zealand Print Council.

In 1968, Bett and her business partner, Catherine Duncan, opened the Bett-Duncan Gallery on Cuba Street, where they exhibited works of promising and established artists, and Bett held art classes. Early exhibitions included pottery by Doreen Blumhardt and prints by Greer Twiss and Hamish Keith. She died in Paraparaumu on 6 December 2016. This book of poetry combines historical references such as Bett and paintings by Leggott’s mother with references to fictional works of art by Leggott’s mother and fictional exhibitions such as reference to the exhibition A Room of One’s Own: Women in New Zealand Art, 1964 purportedly curated by Bett.

Publications Drawing and Painting: A Complete Study Course for New Zealanders. Wellington: Reed, 1984. New Zealand Art: A Modern Perspective. Auckland: Reed Methuen, 1986.