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Home What's on Exhibitions Past Exhibitions Events Programme Friends Events Past Events Adam Portraiture Award Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award About Visit Contact Us About Us Venue Hire Join the team Friends of the Gallery Latest news Annual Reports Join and support Donate Become a Friend Make a Bequest Gift a portrait Our Supporters Learning Learn Group bookings Search the collection

Te Pūkenga Whakaata

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Learn how to draw and paint like Star Gossage!

Artist Grant Hall, curator of 'Star Gossage: He Tangata The People', who is a long time friend of the artist, will lead you through an insightful and fun workshop where you will be able to learn the artistic and stylistic techniques Star Gossage uses in her own artistic practice! Great for high school students and those with a creative flair, make sure to secure your place today so you don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity.

Register your spot today on EventFinda.co.nz

All materials provided.

Limited availability.
For ages 13+

This painting of New Zealand's first female Prime Minister was commissioned by Roger Bridge, a former board member of the National Party, on her retirement.

The portrait reflects a common reason that portraits are painted of powerful figures; to commemorate important events in their lives like their assumption of power or their retirement.

Make sure to see this work in person at the NZ Portrait Gallery, on display in Portraits of Power / Portraits as Power, till 14 March.

Martin Ball, 'The Right Hon Jenny Shipley DNZM', 2002. Collection of NZPG.

Peter Hawes, depicted in this portrait from our collection by Robyn North King (1986), was a well-known New Zealand actor, author, journalist, playwright, and television personality.

Shown here with a newspaper in hand, and surrounded by books, North King is highlighting Hawes' career and creative achievements. The bold yet oppositional colour tones capture the eye, but without a doubt his smiling face is what stays with the viewer.

Check out more works from our collection at https://www.nzportraitgallery.org.nz/our-collection

Robyn North King, 'Portrait of Peter Hawes', 1986. Collection of NZPG.

SOLD OUT!

We can't wait to welcome you to our Looping Workshop Saturday 23 January.

If you missed out, check out our website for future events, and keep up to date on Birgit's other opportunities via her website: https://www.birgitmoffatt.com/

Anyone else's New Years' resolution to pick up a new artistic hobby?

This delicate portrait by Beverley Shore Bennett is of Betty Rhind, who was once an art teacher at Marsden Collegiate School. As Shore Bennett's first art teacher, she was hugely influential on the artist, and shared her own artistic knowledge from her time with the Newlyn School in Cornwall.

What creative project do you want to achieve this year?

Check out more of our collection for inspiration at: https://www.nzportraitgallery.org.nz/our-collection

Image: Beverley Shore Bennett, 'Self Remembering Betty Rhind & F.V Ellis', 1983. Collection of NZPG.

How we feel on New Years day...

We hope your New Year's Eve celebrations were just as festive as ours! If you are nursing a late night, why not stop in to the Gallery today for a calm and creative beginning to the new year.

Image: Douglas MacDiarmid, 'Alan MacDiarmid', 2001. NZPG Collection. Learn more about this work here: https://w.6357.platform.net.nz/posts/547372/

If there is one thing that does not let us forget that New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy under Queen Elizabeth II, it is our money.

While our coins have featured the head of the British monarch for as long as New Zealand has had its own currency, the Queen has only been on our banknotes since decimalisation in 1967: before that, portraits of James Cook, and for a brief period before that the first Māori King Tāwhiao, were the only ones on our paper money. The particular portrait of the Queen that features on our currency has been periodically updated as she has grown older.

This recent portrait was painted from life by Nick Cuthell and presents an image of the Queen that resembles the one that features on coins issued since 1999.

See this portrait at the Gallery in our latest Liz Stringer Curatorial Intern exhibition, Portraits of Power / Portraits as Power : On till 14 March 2021!

Image: Nick Cuthell, 'HM Queen Elizabeth II', 2013–14. Collection of New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata.

Happy Holidays from our Staff and Volunteers here at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery!

We hope you get to hang out in the sun just like our blue-haired girl from 'Engage' by Vivienne Still (2019).

Gift an Experience this Holiday Season!

Learn the versatile technique of wire looping! In this workshop, you will have the opportunity to learn the technique of croqueting wire, called ‘looping’. Follow artist Birgit Moffatt as she teaches you how to delicately loop thin wire around sturdy natural objects, creating personal petit taonga that you can take home with you.

Limited availability; secure your tickets today!

Purchase tickets with discount code NZPGHOLIDAY11 at https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2021/looping-workshop-with-birgit-moffatt/wellington to secure your place today!

Image courtesy of the artist, @birgitmoffattartist

Open today!

Portraits of Power / Portraits as Power, curated by our Liz Stringer Curatorial Intern Paul Johnston, is now open in our Front Gallery at the NZ Portrait Gallery.

About the exhibition: Every time we handle money, we hold a portrait of the Queen. Most portraits we encounter are not on the walls of an art gallery but on objects like currency, or in the media, where they are deployed for some specific purpose. Creating and disseminating a portrait has always been an act of power. This exhibition asks: how are portraits utilised as tools of state and institutional power? and, how can portraiture be used in ways that undermine or subvert systems of power?

Including incredible portraits of Jacinda Ardern, Jenny Shipley, a Young Augustus and the Queen, do make sure to visit this summer.

We love the incredible artistry we see here at the NZ Portrait Gallery! This is just one of the many Portrait Boxes our creative visitors have made over the weekend. Pop in this summer season to make your own! (Swipe right to see Star Gossage’s own portrait boxes which inspired these colourful portraits) Image: Star Gossage, ‘Warm Up’ 2020. Collection of the Artist.

Closing soon! Come by the Gallery between 10:30am-4:30pm to see ‘Everything Old is New Again: The Turnbull Library at 100’ before it closes this Sunday! On until 13 December 2020.

Looping Workshop with artist Birgit Moffatt!

Learn the versatile technique of wire looping! In this workshop, you will have the opportunity to learn the technique of croqueting wire, called ‘looping’. Follow artist Birgit Moffatt as she teaches you how to delicately loop thin wire around sturdy natural objects, creating personal petit taonga that you can take home with you.

Purchase tickets with discount code NZPGHOLIDAY11 at https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2021/looping-workshop-with-birgit-moffatt/wellington/tickets to secure your place today!

Image courtesy of the artist, @birgitmoffattartist

Star Gossage: He Tangata The People opens today!

Star’s work focuses on wāhine (women), tūpuna (ancestors) and whenua (land), of which she engages with through a painterly and emotive practice. This exhibition will be a highlight of Summer, so make sure to pop in when you’re along the Wellington Waterfront!

We also have dedicated activity spaces for tamariki (children) and those young at heart. Come in and get creative!

Image 1: Star Gossage, ‘Untitled’, 2019. Private collection, Auckland.

Image 2: Star Gossage, ‘Pā girls’, 2013. Private collection, Auckland.

Star Gossage: He Tangata The People opens 26 November.
Star Gossage’s (Ngati Wai, Ngati Ruanui) paintings emerge from her wahine (female) centered world. They express how people are interconnected; inseparable from wairua, whenua, whakapapa and whanau (spirit, land, ancestry and family).
Showing 20 years of her artistic practice, this complex and emotive exhibition illuminates her use of the portrait and figure in the landscape to communicate themes of unity, grief, compassion and aroha (love).

Image 1: Star Gossage, ‘Au II’, 2012. Wallace Arts Trust Collection, Auckland.
Image 2: Star Gossage, ‘Pā girls’, 2013. Private collection, Auckland.
Image 3: Star Gossage, ‘Pah Paintings 1-4’, 2014-2015. Collection of the artist, courtesy Tim Melville Gallery.

Thanks for coming to our Curator Talk for Marti Friendlander on Sunday 8 November! While we get the recording of the talk ready, why not listen to one of our speaker’s previous lectures?

Daniel Brown, who is a professor of Design Studio at Victoria University of Wellington, has made his Inaugural lecture ‘The Voice of Architecture: a moment in and out of time’ available online. Find it at: https://vimeo.com/267943510

Come in to see ‘Everything Old is New Again: The Turnbull Library at 100’ at NZPG while we install our next main gallery exhibition!

In this work, Sarah Munro is referencing the infamous 1769 watercolour by Tupaia, who travelled with Captain Cook throughout the pacific in the 18th century. Here, Munro reproduces Tupaia’s painting, working in hand-embroidery, and variously substituting the items of exchange: she depicts the pair before a fern, trading native birds for introduced predators. A commentary on the ecological effects of colonialism, this is just one of the must see works on display!

Artwork: Sarah Munro, ‘Trade Item – Manu, Introduced Predators, Anton Seuffert,’ 2020. Courtesy of the artist.

New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata

Shed 11, 60 Lady Elizabeth Lane,

Wellington,

New Zealand

+64 4 4722298

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Thu 10:30 - 16:30

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Sun 10:30 - 16:30

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What's on

Exhibitions Past exhibitions Events Programme Past events Adam Portraiture Award Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award

About

Visit Contact About Us Venue Hire Join the team Friends of the Gallery Latest News Annual Reports

Join and support

Donate Become a Friend Make a bequest Gift a portrait Our supporters

Learning

Learn Group bookings Search the collection

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