Entry is free.
The Gallery is open daily 10.30am - 4.30pm.
Exhibitions in our two gallery spaces change three or four times a year and feature artworks on loan and from our collection.
Works that defy the conventions of traditional portraiture and explore ways of communicating diverse identities through portraiture.
Curated by Georgie Keyse
Image: Frances Hodgkins, Still life: Self-portrait c.1935, oil on panel, collection of the Museum of Te Papa Tongarewa
Image: Appo Hocton, the first Chinese New Zealander, 1876. Nelson Provincial Museum, WE Brown Collection.
Poutokomanawa features portraits and stories of the transgender women of Carmen’s generation including Chrissy Witoko, Georgina Beyer and Dana de Milo, celebrating their role as poutokomanawa for the community.
Image: Nicolette Page, Carmen 2012, oil on canvas, collection of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata. Gift of the Artist. Photograph: Jess O’Brien
Co-curated by Chanel Hati, Talei Langley and Georgie Keyse
Jaqueline Fahey’s Suburbanites presents people from Fahey’s life within familial, domestic and neighbourhood entanglements.
Image: Jacqueline Fahey, Drinking Couple: Fraser Analyses My Words 1978. Oil on board, The University of Auckland Collection.
Margaret Tolland is an artist and illustrator who is Samuel Marsden’s Artist In Residence for 2019. The residency takes us into the rich and intermingling world of science and art and also connects with Wellington’s very own Zealandia.
With an eye on the rich details that Aotearoa has to offer, Margaret Tolland has illustrated eight paintings through the lens of some environmental champions. The idea of a portrait has extended itself to represent a conservation view with the interests, projects, and species that each person is dedicated to working with.
Our endemic species have many challenges facing them and these role models for conservation are experienced, dedicated, hard working and extremely knowledgeable. The length and breadth of the commitment to Zealandia and wider environmental projects in Aotearoa is breathtaking. There is a lot to learn from those represented in this exhibition.
My Life To Live tells the story and celebrates the immense contribution of refugee background workers in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It also tells the stories of some of the challenges of life in their new home. ChangeMakers Resettlement Forum and Living Wage Movement Aotearoa NZ have worked together in partnership to tell those stories.
The exhibition is a celebration of the lives of refugee background workers. It tells the stories of the immense contribution of refugee background workers to their new home country, Aotearoa. It tells of their hopes and dreams. It also tells of their struggles in low wage work and the difference the Living Wage makes in the lives of workers and their families.
The photographer is an Iranian PHD student, Ehsan Hazaveh. The stories have been recorded in interviews conducted by Victoria University of Wellington Senior Lecturer in History, Dr Cybèle Locke and the narratives have been crafted by Wellington writer, Elizabeth Knox.
Image: Peter James Quinn: "At the East St corner, Kirra Lee begins a Saturday night shift on Karangahape Road, Auckland.”
This collection of homegrown examples shows some of the various creative and stylistic techniques employed by New Zealand portrait artists.
Image: Rudolf Boelee, Robyn Hyde (2007), acrylic on hessian board. NZPG collection.
