A True and Strange Story by Audie Pennefather

Description

Stranger than fiction — and written by her own daughter at eighty. Teuane Ann Tibbo (1895–1984) spent most of her life far from the art world, yet her vibrant paintings of Samoan village life — thatched fales, tropical landscapes, daily island rituals remembered in glowing color — earned her recognition as one of the Pacific’s most distinctive self-taught artists, with works in the University of Auckland’s collection.

A True and Strange Story is her biography, chronicled by her daughter Audie Pennefather — who took up the pen at the age of eighty to make sure her mother’s remarkable life would not be lost. It is a daughter’s labor of love and a window onto a vanished Pacific world.

Charming, unusual, and deeply human. For lovers of folk art and extraordinary ordinary lives. A small masterpiece of family biography — and a tribute to art made far from the spotlight.

Some life stories are stranger — and richer — than fiction. A True and Strange Story is the biography of Teuane Ann Tibbo (1895–1984), a New Zealand folk artist whose remarkable life was chronicled by none other than her own daughter, Audie Pennefather, who wrote this book at the age of eighty.

Tibbo spent most of her life far from the art world, yet her vibrant paintings of Samoan village life — memory-rich scenes of thatched fales, tropical landscapes, and daily island life — eventually earned her recognition as one of the Pacific’s most distinctive self-taught artists, with works held in the University of Auckland art collection. Sometimes called the South Pacific’s answer to Grandma Moses, she proved that creative talent has no expiry date.

Pennefather tells her mother’s story with the intimacy only a daughter could bring: family memories, Samoan cultural traditions, and nearly a century of change witnessed firsthand, from colonial Samoa to the modern Pacific. The result is both a loving tribute and a valuable cultural document.

First published in 2009, this is a biography for art lovers, Pacific history enthusiasts, and anyone who believes it is never too late to pick up a paintbrush.