Bird Land: Te Kāhui Manu
From taoka tuku iho to contemporary moving image, Aotearoa’s birds take centre stage
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Exploring the relationship between tākata and whenua – people and land – through Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.
Coming Soon
Jason Greig: Blood is Thicker
E tuwhera ana te wharetoi i kā rā e 7 o te wiki, 10am - 5pm
Ka tuwhera ki te 9pm i kā pō Wenerei
Open 7 days, 10am - 5pm
Late night Wednesday until 9pm
Uruka utukore, ahokore utukore
Free entry, free wifi
Peter Vangioni
Artist Profile
Stone, Water, Ink and Paper
In 2024, the Gallery received a remarkable archive relating to the Gingko Print Workshop and Gallery including lithographs, etchings, workbooks, papers, photographs, posters and much more. The gift was made by Jule Einhorn, a master printer who, seeing a need for an accessible specialist print studio in Ōtautahi Christchurch, started the Gingko Print Workshop and Gallery at the Arts Centre.
Exhibition
Timeless: Treasures from the Historical Collection
Across centuries and continents, artists have long looked outward in a spirit of discovery.
Artist Profile
Raymond McIntyre
It’s been too long a time between exhibitions for expatriate Waitaha Canterbury artist Raymond McIntyre (1879–1933) here at the Gallery. Although his work is regularly included in group exhibitions, the last focused survey was forty years ago when Raymond McIntyre toured to the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. Maybe a few of our readers remember this exhibition, but it feels like time he was introduced to a new audience.
Exhibition
Gilded: Van der Velden's The Dutch Funeral
For a short time only, see one of Ōtautahi Christchurch’s most cherished paintings, Petrus van der Velden’s Burial in the Winter on the Island of Marken.
Commentary
Morris Dancing in the Modelling Room
Arriving in Ōtautahi Christchurch must have been like arriving on another planet for Francis Shurrock. It was 1924, and he had travelled half-way around the world from England to take up a position as modelling and art craft master at the Canterbury College School of Art. Indeed, one of his pupils there, Juliet Peter, later described him as an “alien”, for the fresh approach to teaching that made him stand out from other teachers at the school. Nevertheless, Shurrock made Ōtautahi his home and never returned to England.
Exhibition
Archive Lounge: Hawk Press 1975-1983
A selection of beautifully designed and printed Hawk Press books presented to the Gallery by Alan Loney.
Commentary
For the Price of a Pint of Beer
One of the joys of working at a public art gallery is the opportunity to really get to know an institution’s collection. I still remember, as a newly appointed curator of works on paper at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, coming across a cache of the brightest, most colourful and energetic prints I had ever seen among the Rex Nan Kivell collection of modern British prints. Given to the Gallery in 1953, the sheer breadth and depth of Nan Kivell’s incredibly comprehensive gift, especially when combined with the works he gave to Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Dunedin Public Art Gallery, makes this a collection of British linocuts to rival those in major collections throughout the world.
Article
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Our expansive collection exhibition explores the fundamental role whenua plays in the visual language and identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. Acknowledging Māori as takata whenua, the first peoples to call this land home, themes of kaitiakitaka, colonisation, environmentalism, land use, migration, identity and belonging are considered through collection works, new acquisitions and exciting commissions. Painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, moving image, printmaking and weaving by historical and contemporary artists are brought together to reveal how land has been a material and subject for art in Aotearoa for hundreds of years. Here, the Gallery’s curators each take a closer look at a key work from the exhibition that tells us something about our complex relationship with the whenua.
Exhibition
Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View
Dynamic and progressive paintings and woodcuts from one of Aotearoa’s New Zealand foremost modernist artists.
Commentary
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Our expansive new collection exhibition explores the fundamental role whenua plays in the visual language and identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. Acknowledging Māori as takata whenua, the first peoples to call this land home, themes of kaitiakitaka, colonisation, environmentalism, land use, migration, identity and belonging are considered through collection works, new acquisitions and exciting commissions. Painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, moving image, printmaking and weaving by historical and contemporary artists are brought together to reveal how land has been a material and subject for art in Aotearoa for hundreds of years. Here, the Gallery’s curators each take a closer look at a key work from the exhibition that tells us something about our complex relationship with the whenua.