Artist and potter Juliet Cowan dies

Influential Wellington artist Juliet Cowan has died, aged 94.

Also known as Juliet Peter, the potter, painter and printmaker was made a companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2000 for her contribution to the visual arts.

With her late husband, potter Roy Cowan, she struck out as an artist in the 1950s. They both had success, with their work selling well at galleries such as Cadeau in Lambton Quay, The Antipodes in Dixon St and New Vision in Auckland.

Juliet Cowan exhibited her trademark huge pots alongside artists such as Toss Woollaston, John Drawbridge and Rita Angus, a close friend.

After moving to the Rita Angus retirement village in Kilbirnie, where she died on Tuesday, she told The Dominion Post she had been a little unnerved by its name. "But in the end I realised I couldn't find anything else like it," she said in 2007.

In 1999, when she and her husband put a large part of their collection up for auction, she told The Evening Post they had kept a low profile as they grew older. "We've always been too busy and have always shunned hype. Hype would have annoyed us and interfered with what we were doing."

Another highlight of her long career was her contribution to the School Journal, where she was one of the most prolific illustrators, contributing hundreds of drawings.

Her artistic study included time at the Canterbury College School of Art and a stint in London at the Hammersmith Art School.

- © Fairfax NZ News