Doris Lusk (b.1916, Dunedin–d.1990) attended Dunedin School of Art between 1934-38, studying under the painters J.D. Charlton Edgar and R.N. Field, as well as life-drawing classes under the tutelage of Russell Clark. Lusk had a long career teaching art, including at University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, and became president of Canterbury Society of Arts in the 1980s. Lusk w an important figure within New Zealand art history primarily due to her role within the Regionalist movement, which was characterised by a focus on local identity and a sense of place. She shared conceptual and physical territory with her contemporaries (including Toss Woollaston, Rita Angus, James K. Baxter, Allan and Betty Curnow, and others) within The Group, a community of artists mostly based in Christchurch, and a literary community centred around Caxton Press. Lusk is well-known for her Modernist-influenced landscape paintings, which showcase stylistically flattened hills and the harsh light of New Zealand, and developed material techniques within oil, acrylic and watercolour painting. She died in 1990.
