14 October 2022

In 2023 internationally renowned modernist writer Katherine Mansfield will be celebrated throughout Aotearoa and the world. Mansfield was born in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington on 14 October 1888 and died in Fontainebleau, France, on 9 January 1923.

Alongside other 20th century literary giants James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence, Katherine defined modernism by experimenting with style, subject matter and theme in a body of work that redefined the genres in which she was a master: short stories and letters. Katherine Mansfield’s legacy is one of the most influential writers of the modernist period who still inspires excellence and innovation in literature and other artforms across the world.

Throughout 2023, Katherine Mansfield House & Garden in Wellington is coordinating a global opportunity to celebrate Katherine Mansfield and all she connotes: bold, raw, honest, inventive and resilient in both life and art.

The website km23.co.nz will host a calendar of events happening across Aotearoa in 2023 and around the world, too. Anyone interested in hosting or creating an event to celebrate Katherine Mansfield or an aspect of her life and work, can submit events to be listed on the site.

Of the centenary project, Director of Katherine Mansfield House & Garden, Cherie Jacobson says: ‘This is an opportunity to uplift the awareness of one of our greatest artists. Katherine Mansfield had an extraordinary energy. Her life was one of risk and innovation and despite illnesses and prejudice, she produced work of such luminous force, of such vivid intensity, that it ignites us afresh, even 100 years later. We look forward to seeing what ideas Aotearoa and the world come up with to honour her. Whether large or very small we can make 2023 a time to come together to be as bold and as inventive as Katherine was. One idea we’ve been discussing here at the house is simply to send a letter to someone you love: Katherine’s command of letters has left a brilliant example of the power of the word on an intimate level. And you can use the KM23 postage stamp to send it!’

The website will also host a set of KM23 logos and posters that can be downloaded and used by anyone wanting to celebrate Katherine Mansfield’s life and work, either at home, at work, in the classroom, at a book club or in a retail or gallery space (as examples). It will also be a place to discover more about Katherine and why she is an icon for feminists, artists, readers, book lovers and New Zealanders.

Credit: Anne Estelle Rice, Portrait of Katherine Mansfield, oil on canvas, 1918. Purchased 1940 with T G Macarthy Trust funds. Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand (1940-0009-1).

The KM23 logo has been designed by acclaimed book designer Keely O’Shannessy who has taken inspiration from a portrait of Mansfield in the National Portrait Gallery in London to bring Katherine’s sculptural hair and powerful gaze to the fore. The logo also draws on the colour red, which is often associated with Katherine Mansfield due to the iconic portrait of her painted by American artist Anne Estelle Rice in 1918, in Cornwall. To mark the centenary, Te Papa will hang this important portrait of Katherine Mansfield in its Toi Art galleries. In June 1918 Mansfield wrote, in a letter to John Middleton Murray: ‘A. came early and began the great painting … It’s awfully interesting, even now. I painted her in my way as she painted me in hers: her eyes … little blue flowers plucked this morning.’

Lizzie Bisley, Curator Modern Art, says: ‘This wonderful portrait is one of the best-loved paintings in Te Papa’s art collection. We are delighted to celebrate Mansfield’s life and work by putting it on display in Toi Art over the summer.’

In 2023 the Rice portrait will inspire a mini-Festival of talks and activities to celebrate Katherine Mansfield at Te Papa. Details to come later in 2022, on km23.co.nz.

Partners involved in delivering KM23 events, exhibitions and activations include:
WellingtonNZ
Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, The Stout Centre for New Zealand Studies – presenting a conference on Katherine Mansfield
The National Library of New Zealand – presenting an exhibition of material from the Alexander Turnbull Library’s Mansfield collection, the foremost collection of Mansfield manuscripts and curios in the world

Te Papa Tongarewa – presenting a day of talks and activities to celebrate Mansfield
NZ Post – producing Katherine Mansfield Centenary stamps to be released in February 2023

The Embassy of France in New Zealand

Wellington International Airport

East by West Ferries

NZ Opera

ReadNZ

Karen Walker

Many more to be announced from November 2022 onwards.

International activity includes artists in Germany and the United Kingdom adapting short stories for theatre and musical performances; and the publication of a new biography of Mansfield, by acclaimed biographer Professor Claire Harman. All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything is due to be published on 10 January 2023 by Penguin Random House.

Key details:

Katherine Mansfield Centenary 2023: 100 years of Katherine Mansfield’s creative legacy

Website: Km23.co.nz
For inquiries: hello@km23.co.nz

Image credit: Anne Estelle Rice, Portrait of Katherine Mansfield, oil on canvas, 1918. Purchased 1940 with T G Macarthy Trust funds. Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand (1940-0009-1). Link here.