Janet Paul

Tinakore Village artist plaque

Dame Janet Elaine Paul DNZM (née Wilkinson; 9 November 1919 – 28 July 2004) was a New Zealand publisher, painter and art historian,[1] based in Wellington.[2][3]

She was married to Blackwood Paul and they had a bookselling and publishing business together. Their publishing house, Blackwood and Janet Paul, specialized in New Zealand literature and society, publishing important works such as The Maori People in the Nineteen Sixties (1968), which included essays by eminent Māori scholars Bruce Biggs and Pei Te Hurinui Jones,[4] and Hone Tuwhare's first collection of poetry No Ordinary Sun (1964). After her husband's death, she was courted by Denis Glover, one of the poets they published.[5] From 1971 to 1980, she was art librarian at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.[6]

Janet and Blackwood Paul had four daughters. Their eldest daughter, Joanna Margaret Paul, became a well-known New Zealand artist, poet, publisher and film-maker, while their second daughter, Charlotte Paul, is a doctor, epidemiologist and emeritus professor at the University of Otago. Their third daughter, Mary Paul is retired scholar of New Zealand literature, particularly the work of Robin Hyde.[7] Their youngest daughter, Jane Paul, was also an artist and worked at the National Film Archive and then Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.[8]

In the 1997 Queen's Birthday Honours, Paul was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to publishing, writing and painting.[2]

References

  1. ^ "Farewell to some notable people". nzherald.co.nz. 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2011. Polymath is a word that applies to Dame Janet Paul, 84, who died after a rich, full life as publisher, painter and art historian.
  2. ^ a b "Queen's Birthday honours list 1997". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 2 June 1997. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  3. ^ "Paul, Janet – Collections Online – Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa". collections.tepapa.govt.nz. 2011. Retrieved 7 June 2011.
  4. ^ natlib.govt.nz https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22001033?search%5Bi%5D%5Bsubject%5D%5B%5D=K%C4%81wanatanga&search%5Bi%5D%5Bsubject%5D%5B%5D=T%C4%81ngata+whenua&search%5Bpath%5D=items. Retrieved 12 August 2024. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. ^ Shieff, Sarah (2011). "Denis Glover, 1912–1980 | NZETC". nzetc.org. 7 (3). doi:10.26686/knznq.v7i3.716. Retrieved 15 September 2011. Having regained some of his former strength, he proceeded to lay siege to the affections of Janet Paul, the widow and business partner of his old friend Blackwood Paul (1908-65). Booksellers and publishers Blackwood and Janet Paul Ltd. had, by the mid 1960s, overtaken Caxton as New Zealand's leading publishers of poetry, and in 1968 Janet had published Glover's Sharp Edge Up: Verses and Satires.
  6. ^ Paul, Janet (1986). "Hints of becoming". In Clark, Margaret (ed.). Beyond expectations : fourteen New Zealand women write about their lives. Wellington, N.Z.: Allen & Unwin/Port Nicholson Press. pp. 3–19. ISBN 0-86861-650-8. OCLC 15278262.
  7. ^ "Positivity from a dark history". NZ Herald. 31 May 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
  8. ^ "Death of Nga Taonga's Jane Paul, after a sudden illness". Retrieved 12 August 2024.