Overview
Explore the Gallery's permanent collection in one of the largest
and most absorbing presentations of New Zealand art. Travel from
the present day back to the 1600s, uncovering the creativity and
cultural diversity of New Zealanders. Discover their preoccupations
with identity, migration and the land.
Begin your journey among video, photography, sculpture and
painting by contemporary New Zealand artists. See Michael
Parekowhai's sculpture, The Indefinite Article, which -
layered with meaning - was first exhibited when he was just 21.
Continue to the period 1900 to 1965 and find paintings by Colin
McCahon and Rita Angus. Encounter Ralph Hotere's horizon-spanning
mural, Godwit/Kuaka, which for many years greeted
travellers arriving at Auckland International Airport.
Further on, discover how New Zealanders first saw themselves and
their lands. Via early European impressions of the islands to
Goldie and Lindauer's classic portraits of Māori and Pākehā, reach
both the beginning and the end of this story of New Zealand
art.
Ongoing
Ground / Level 1
Free entry
Image: Kennett Watkins, The Phantom canoe: a legend of Lake
Tarawera, 1888, oil on canvas, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o
Tāmaki, gift of Mr H E Partridge, 1915