Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Tīrama Mai 2025
Tīrama Mai is back this winter to celebrate Puanga Matariki with an array of artistic lighting and cultural displays in the heart of Ōtautahi Christchurch.
Disruptive Landscapes: Contemporary Art from Japan
Quietly powerful and immersive video works revealing the politics behind our view of landscape.
John Vea: Ini Mini Mani Mou
Powerful new work examining the complexities of the immigration process in Aotearoa New Zealand.
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
No! by Tony Fomison
No! was begun in 1969 while Tony Fomison was living in a house in Riccarton Road with Philip Clairmont and other bohemian artists. Typical in its intensity and edgy mood, this work was inspired by a newspaper photograph Fomison saw when he was in England during the late 1960s.
The Ceramic Collection
The Gallery's ceramic collection underwent a remarkable shift during the 1980s, in both the way ceramics were regarded and in the number of works collected. However, some of the first pieces to be acquired were purchased in 1954 and 1955. They were early works by the New Zealand master ceramic artist, Len Castle (b.1924), made in 1956-7 before he went to Cornwell to study with Bernard Leach (1887-1979). Inspired by Leach and the Japanese ceramic artist Shoji Hamada (1894-1978), Castle developed an individual oeuvre that drew upon his love of the natural environment and his fascination with the symbol of the circle. Bowl Stemmed (1985), an elegant wheel - thrown bowl with a rich crackle glaze and refined stem, reflects Castle's Anglo-Japanese aesthetic and his highly developed technical skill in kiln firing.
Eternal Idol by Auguste Rodin
"One day, from up on the scaffolding where I was working on the Burghers of Calais, I noticed Rodin, who between some scenes, was doing a nude sculpture, for which the model was a young woman, stretched out on the table. As the session was drawing to a close, he bent over toward the woman and kissed her tenderly on her belly - a gesture of adoration of nature, which gave him so much joy."
The Sculpture Collection
The first encounter most Robert McDougall Art Gallery visitors have with the Sculpture Collection is passing Ex Tenebris Lux (1937), Ernest George Gillick's bronze figure of a reading woman, on their way to the Gallery's front entrance. This work's title and subject, symbolising enlightenment and literally translated as "from darkness, light", is an appropriate maxim for an art museum, but Gillick's sculpture has another, historical, significance. Originally sited within the Sculpture Court (now called the Centre Court) of the Gallery, Ex Tenebris Lux was donated in 1938 by local biscuit manufacturer Robert E. McDougall, who had gifted the funds to build Christchurch's public Art Gallery almost ten years before.
Port Lyttelton, N.Z., March 9, 1874, from Nature by Thomas Cane
This article first appeared in The Press on 27 July 2005
2005 marks the centennial of the death of one of Canterbury's notable Victorian watercolourists and architects, Thomas Cane (1830 - 1905). Cane was born in Brighton, Sussex and prior to his arrival to Canterbury in 1873 he had trained as an architect and quantity surveyor under the firm of Banks and Barry. He was also employed by one of the masters of the Victorian Gothic Revival architectural style, Sir Gilbert Scott, who designed Christchurch's Anglican Cathedral. Cane travelled widely throughout Europe on several occasions visiting France, Germany, Belgium and Holland with the direct purpose of studying medieval architecture. He is likely to have developed his skills as a watercolourist while working as a architect, which would have required producing detailed sketches of building designs.
Zipp by Frances Hodgkins
‘I can't tell you the horror of the Blackout and the effects on your nerves - the want of ventilation at night is very tiring - perhaps the nastiest part of it all.' - Frances Hodgkins in a letter to her brother, William.
The Satara Player by Petrus van der Velden
Things are not always what they seem. What looks like the result of an artistic foray into exotic lands is, in fact, an 1894 portrait of a Christchurch busker who posed in the studio of Petrus van der Velden.
Sangro Litany by Ralph Hotere
The Sangro series, begun in 1962, is a memorial to Ralph Hotere's brother Jack, who fought with the Maori Battalion and whose grave lies among those of hundreds of other young soldiers at the Sangro River War Cemetery on Italy's Adriatic Coast.
A Stitch in Time
Textiles comprise a small proportion of the Gallery's Collections, yet they span a vast time period, combining Chinese antiques and 17th century appliqué with fabric-based work made as recently as 2000. The diverse range of practice is indicative of the evolution, in form and content, of textile-based works from objects dedicated to religious worship and domestic decoration to conceptual art objects which exist outside a strictly functional context.
Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) by Ralph Hotere
This article first appeared in The Press on 28 March 2007
Among the highlights of the Christchurch Art Gallery's drawing collection is Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) by Otago artist Ralph Hotere. Produced in 1977 Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) illustrates Hotere's development from his formal geometric approach found in his earlier work of the late 1960s and early 1970s towards the more expressive manner he developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s.