Els Noordhof

Elisabeth Johanna Noordhof (24 February 1924 – 7 March 2013), known as Els Noordhof or Els Noordhof-Smith, was a Dutch-born portrait artist and book illustrator.

Els Noordhof
Born	Elisabeth Johanna Noordhof 24 February 1924 Bloemendaal, Holland
Died	7 March 2013 Otago, New Zealand
Nationality	Dutch, American, New Zealander
Occupation	Illustrator, artist

Early life

Elisabeth Johanna Noordhof was born in 1924 in Bloemendaal, Holland, the daughter of Gosse Eilke Noordhof.[1] She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Rijksmuseum in 1945.[2] Her older brother George H. Noordhof became a filmmaker in England.[3]

Career

Noordhof lived in England and the United States after World War II.[4][5] She and her family settled in New Zealand in 1966.[2][6] She had a studio in Dunedin, and taught at the University of Otago's summer arts schools in Kurow.[2] She painted the official portraits of several mayors of Dunedin, though mayor Sukhi Turner was not fond of her Noordhof portrait, and replaced it with a photograph in the city council chambers.[7] She was a patron of the Otago Art Society.[8]

Books illustrated by Els Noordhof

• Ruth Dallas, Ragamuffin Scarecrow (1969)[9][10]
• Olive Smithells, Look After Your Back, Streamline Your Front (1970)[11]
• Esther Glen, Six Little New Zealanders (1983)[12]
• Esther Glen, Uncles Three at Kamahi (1985)[13]

Personal life and legacy

In 1949, while she was living in Cambridge, Noordhof married an American Fulbright scholar, Harold "Hal" Wendell Smith.[1] They had four children.[6] She was widowed when Smith died in 2006, and she died in 2013, aged 89 years. The National Library of New Zealand holds audio recordings of a 2002 oral history interview with Noordhof, conducted by Penelope Dunkley.[14]

Her work was included in a 2017 exhibit, "About Face: Selected Portraits from the Collection", at the Eastern Southland Gallery.[15]

References

1. "Wedding Takes Place in Cambridge, England". The Evening Independent. 8 July 1949. p. 7. Retrieved 14 April 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
2. "Hocken Legacy". University of Otago Magazine. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
3. "George Noordhof". BFI. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
4. "Return from England". The Evening Independent. 1 September 1950. p. 7. Retrieved 14 April 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
5. "Birth announcement". The Evening Independent. 20 October 1952. p. 2. Retrieved 14 April 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
6. "Hal Smith: Lunchtime Poetry Readings" CSA News (July–August 1985): 3.
7. "Painting Snuck In". Channel 39. 5 April 2005. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
8. "The Permanent Collection". The Otago Art Society. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
9. Twentieth-century Children's Writers. Macmillan International Higher Education. 10 November 1978. p. 336. ISBN 978-1-349-03648-6.
10. "The Black Art, Special Collections Exhibition". University of Otago Library, New Zealand. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
11. Smithells, Olive; Noordhof, Els (1970). Look after your back, streamline your front. Dunedin, N.Z. : John McIndoe.
12. Glen, Esther (1983). Six little New Zealanders. Auckland, N.Z. : Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-33881-0.
13. "Esther Glen". Storylines. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
14. Noordhof, Elisabeth Johanna (22 March 2002). "Interview with Elizabeth Noordhof". Interview with Elizabeth Noordhof | Items | National Library of New Zealand | National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
15. "About Face". esgallery-x. Retrieved 14 April 2020.

External links

• A 1967 ink portrait by Elisabeth Noordhof, of poet James K. Baxter, in the Alexander Turnbull Library.
• "Boy and His Shadow" (circa 1976), a painting by Elisabeth Noordhof, in the collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
• 1969 newspaper photograph of Els Noordhof, Ruth Dallas and Keith Maslen, from a University of Otago Library exhibit.