Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Made in the Pacific: A Collection of Tāoga
A selection of Pacific tāoga from the Canterbury Museum in conversation with contemporary artworks that highlight the continued strength in culture and traditional art forms.
Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua
A comprehensive survey spanning the artist's career.
Ana Iti: Ngahere Behind a Pile of Metal
An immersive installation considering the legacies of deforestation and significance of kauri trees.
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Ka tuwhera ki te 9pm i kā pō Wenerei
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Late night Wednesday until 9pm
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Free entry, free wifi
Collection
Raymond McIntyre Study (Woman in a Wide Black Hat)
Raymond McIntyre’s confident, modern look in this self-portrait reflects his growing reputation as an artist and his conviction that “one’s only chance is to be oneself”. By 1912 he had completed his studies under William Nicholson and Walter Sickert and given up on trying to get his work accepted for the Royal Academy of Arts – the institution at the forefront of England’s conservative art establishment. He wrote to his father:
There is no doubt that official (or Royal!!) recognition of Art has a very deadening effect. The R.A. [Royal Academy] is not in touch with the really significant things that are happening in the world of Art. The old order must pass, though. Well bother the R.A. anyway – away! – begone!
McIntyre instead gravitated to the more contemporary New England Art Club and the London Group, which were both spearheading modern developments in British art at the time. Throughout the 1910s he exhibited alongside leading contemporary artists including Christopher Nevinson, Jacob Epstein and Paul Nash.
(Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View, 25 October 2025 – 8 March 2026)
Collection
Thomas Benjamin Kennington Relaxation
Thomas Benjamin Kennington’s focus as an artist was in the sympathetic depiction of the everyday reality of the poor and working classes. Born in Grimsby, a seaport on England's east coast, he studied art in Liverpool, London and Paris, and from 1880 exhibited annually at the Royal Academy, where this naturalistic workroom scene was shown in 1908.
Relaxation was exhibited at the 1911 International Exposition of Art in Rome and at the 1913 New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts exhibiton in Wellington. By 1920 it was in the hands of newspaper proprietor Robert Bell. Bell was president of the Canterbury Society of Arts from 1925–26, and bequeathed ten paintings to the gallery. (Treasury: A Generous Legacy, 18 December 2015 – 27 November 2016)
Collection
Frances Hodgkins Unshatterable (Belgian Refugees)
The Dunedin-born Frances Hodgkins was running her own watercolour painting school in Paris when World War I broke out in 1914. She relocated to St. Ives in Cornwall, where she found many displaced Belgian families also living, and painted this work in response to their wretched plight. Unshatterable, one of her first oil paintings, was exhibited in London in 1916 and purchased by the painter Sir Cedric Morris. Dr Rodney Wilson, the Gallery’s director in 1980, visited Morris, and with assistance from the National Art Collections Fund, a British art charity, successfully secured this work for the Christchurch collection.
(Treasury: A Generous Legacy, 18 December 2015 – 27 November 2016)
Collection
Meindert Hobbema A Wooded Landscape with Peasants on a Path and an Angler at a Stream
Although under-recognised in his own lifetime, Amsterdam-based Meindert Hobbema is now seen as one of the greatest landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Hobbema’s exclusive focus on countryside relates to the extraordinary growth of Dutch cities and towns in this period, and a newfound desire for idealised depictions of rural life.
(Out of Time, 23 September 2023 – 28 April 2024)
Collection
George Henry The Black Hat
In about 1901, having established a strong reputation with his painting in Scotland, the Glasgow-based George Henry relocated to London, where he began to establish a successful society portrait practice.
The Black Hat – possibly the work exhibited to acclaim as ‘La dame au chapeau noir’ at the Royal Glasgow Institute in 1904 – was one of twelve paintings selected in 1911 by the English artist Niels Lund to be purchased for the Canterbury Society of Arts. Its acquisition in 1912 was enabled through a newly agreed £50 annual subsidy from the Christchurch City Council; the society presented the painting to the city's new public gallery in 1932.
(Treasury: A Generous Legacy, 18 December 2015 – 27 November 2016)
Collection
Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot Soldiers in a Village
Between 1618 and 1648, Europe was thrown into turmoil by the Thirty Years’ War – a bitter conflict that raged between Catholic and Protestant states. It was renowned for the vicious fighting often brought about by the large mercenary armies employed on both sides. Here, Droochsloot depicts the confiscations and pillaging by mercenary soldiers as they drive Dutch villagers from their homes.
(New Dawn Fades, November 2018)
Collection
Gerrit Dou The Physician
Gerrit Dou was Rembrandt van Rijn’s earliest and most successful student, and became highly sought after by European royalty and aristocratic patrons for his captivating, highly detailed works. His paintings were packed with intriguing elements waiting to be read. Here, a physician based on Dou himself carefully analyses a jar of urine for a pregnancy test.
(Out of Time, 23 September 2023 – 28 April 2024)
Collection
Gerrit Adriaenszoon Berckheyde A View in Cologne with St. Gereon's Basilica
Gerrit Berckheyde’s major contribution to Dutch painting was as a champion of the cityscape, a new genre that developed from the mid 1600s. Haarlem-based Berckheyde began making paintings of Cologne (Köln) in about 1670, from sketches made in Germany in the 1650s. Several works featured St Gereon’s Basilica, a Romanesque church completed in the early thirteenth century.
(Out of Time, 23 September 2023 – 28 April 2024)
Collection
Gaspar van Wittel The Colosseum seen from the Southeast
Dutch-born Gaspar van Wittel moved to Rome at about twenty-two in 1674 and spent the rest of his life in Italy. Known there as Vanvitelli, he became pivotal in the development of the genre of painting known as veduta, topographical scenes created as high-quality mementoes for visitors to Italy on ‘The Grand Tour’.
(Out of Time, 23 September 2023 – 28 April 2024)
Gaspar van Wittel is also known by the italianised version of his name, Vanvitelli
