Eileen Olive Deste (16 June 1909 – 2 March 1986) was a New Zealand photographer. Deste was heavily involved in photographing the

New Zealand Centennial Exhibition The New Zealand Centennial Exhibition took place over six months from Wednesday 8 November 1939 until 4 May 1940. It celebrated one hundred years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 and the subsequent mass European settlement of ...

Biography

Eileen Olive Leach was born in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...

, Surrey,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, on 16 June 1909. As a young woman she moved to London, England, where she became a jewelry photographer for Cartier’s. Around this time she took on the professional last name of Deste. She emigrated to New Zealand in the early 1930s. She set up a business initially in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

, then studios in a variety of locations in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...

. In 1938 Deste was selected to be the official photographer to the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition to be held in Wellington in 1939 and 1940. She documented all aspects of the exhibition from construction to closing. She was also involved with creating photographic souvenirs of the Centennial. In 1943 she returned to England. She set up a studio in London, specializing in portraiture and photographing art work. She also documented a variety of architectural subjects; industrial chimneys, prison doors and pottery kilns. She became a life long friend of writer and traveler

Guy Arnold Guy Arnold (6 May 1932 – 4 January 2020) was a British explorer, travel writer, political writer and specialist in north-south relations, who wrote mainly in the areas of African history, politics, and international affairs. He was based i ...

who lived in the flat above her in Marylebone. She died on 2 March 1986 in London. Over 2,000 of her photographs are held in the Historic England archive.

References

External links

1840-1940 New Zealand Centennial Postcards
for examples of her postcards.
Historic England archive
LEACH, EILEEN OLIVE, GRO Reference: 1909, S Quarter, CROYDON, Volume 02A, Page 289, Mother's Maiden Surname: RUMBALL. {{DEFAULTSORT:Deste, Eileen Olive 1909 births 1986 deaths New Zealand photographers English emigrants to New Zealand New Zealand women photographers 20th-century New Zealand women artists People from Croydon 20th-century women photographers