Ngā mihi o te Tau Hou!
We’re closing at 5pm today. Start your new year immersed in art – we’ll see you bright and breezy on New Year’s Day from 10am.
Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View
New exhibition now open.
Living Archives
Archives that tell stories about artists and history in Aotearoa
Whāia te Taniwha
Māori artists consider the enduring relevance of taniwha in Aotearoa.
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
Collection
Marilynn Webb Blue Day at the West Eweburn
West Eweburn Dam is a lake located at the top of the Maniototo Valley in Otago. Marilynn Webb made a series of works in response to the lake, documenting how the water and surrounding environment changed with the seasons and the weather. She often chose this particular viewpoint, where the water in the foreground slowly gives way to the shoreline and foothills, leading the eye up to the sky above. Unlike other works, which show the scene under brooding clouds or lightly dusted with spring snow, this print shows it on a bright day, with all of the landscape’s elements rendered in different shades of blue.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022-21 July 2024 )
Collection
Nugent Herman Welch Billet Yard, France
Wellington artist Nugent Welch enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in 1916 and spent two years fighting on the Western Front during 1917 and 1918, including at the Battle of Passchendaele. In April 1918 he became Aotearoa New Zealand’s first official war artist when he was appointed Divisional Artist in the New Zealand Armed Forces. His tasks were to record scenes behind the front lines – the depots, hospitals and camps used by the New Zealand Division, including the billet yards seen in this painting. These bombed out farm buildings would have offered refuge, rest and shelter for the war weary New Zealand soldiers coming off the front line, a welcome opportunity to take a break from the horrors of trench warfare. Welch was part of the Impressionist influenced Pumpkin Cottage Group in Wellington before the war and on his discharge from the army in 1919 he returned to Wellington and settled back into civilian life. He continued his career as an artist, becoming a central figure of the Wellington arts scene and painting plein air studies of the coast surrounding the region.
(ANZAC Day, 2023)
