Life in forms is a focused survey of the work of trailblazing Ngāpuhi artist Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury (1928-1977). It charts the artist’s practice over four decades, from her early works in the 1940s to her final pieces in the 1970s.

Developed and toured by Te Uru Contemporary Gallery.

The Adam Portraiture Award is Aotearoa’s premier prize for painted portraiture.

Image: Duncan Pepe Long, Solomon Tāmehana, 2026, oil on wood (winner)

A new exhibition curated by Helen Kedgley of portrait paintings and drawings by Joanna Margaret Paul and her mother Dame Janet Elaine Paul.

Image: Joanna Margaret Paul ‘Self-Portrait’ circa 1970, pencil on paper, 2001/38/2. Collection of Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery. Gift of the artist, 2002.

This new exhibition follows New Zealand artist Yuki Kihara’s exploration of Pacific history through her alter ego Salome.

Image: Yuki Kihara, After Tsunami Galu Afi, Lalomanu, 2013. Courtesy University of Auckland.

A Horse Walks Into A Bar: Humour and Portraiture in Aotearoa is curated by Liz Stringer Curatorial Intern for 2025, Matthew Whiteman.  Reaching across a half-century of portraiture in Aotearoa, this exhibition offers a potted history of how painters, photographers and video artists have snuck punchlines into the white cubes of the gallery, and to what end.

Image: Maurice Bennett, Self, 2010. 2275 pieces of toast, PVA and 2 pot lacquer on painted board. Collection of New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata

Drawing together work by contemporary artists, Reclaimed Land: Tāngata, Tiriti, Taiao presents a portrait of the earth told through personal, ancestral and collective relationships between he tāngata and te taiao. These artists take action for nature, and tell stories of collective futures. Their works reclaim the land, reminding us that to tend to the land is to tend to ourselves.

Curated by Israel Randell and Susan Ballard 

Image: Tia Ranginui, Ka Hapai te Rama, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Laree Payne Gallery.  

Hannah Ireland, a Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist of Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi descent, paints portraits in the broadest, loosest sense, capturing the essence of faces and emotions. Her paintings feature faces that appear distorted, as if pressed against the glass plate of a photocopier. 

Curated by Jaenine Parkinson

Image: Hannah Ireland, Clock Work, 2023, watercolour and acrylic on found window

Delving into the complicated multiplicities of self-perception and identity, this exhibition presents a selection of innovative painted self-portraits by modern and contemporary artists from Aotearoa New Zealand.

Image: Sacha Lees, Sometimes an Outline Coloured In, 2020. Collection New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata, winner of the Adam Portraiture Award 2020.

This exhibition will focus on three aspects of Lynch’s artistic career: portraits painted for competitions (for instance she entered the famous Australian Archibald Portrait Prize four times), controversial portraits (her portrait of Mayor Percy Dowse, Lower Hutt was taken down at the Dowse but in 1984 the director was told to reinstate it against his dislike for it) and portraits of her students, of which there are many.

Image: Julia Lynch, Self-portrait, c.1924, private collection.

The Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award is a competition that encourages young Maaori artists to create portraits of their tupuna (ancestors) in any medium. The Award is hosted and administered by Te Pūkenga Whakaata the New Zealand Portrait Gallery in honour of the late Maaori King, Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII.

In response to the Tuia 250 event, Me Anga Whakamua – Facing the Future, explores the impact of the first encounters between Māori and Europeans. Emotive photographic portraits of tāngata whenua, their thoughts and aspirations offer a window into everyday lives of Māori looking back to the past to form a pathway to a shared future. 

Image: Diane Stoppard, Papanui Polamalu, 2019, Silver gelatin print, Courtesy Hihiaua Cultural Centre

Gavin Hurley’s portraits substantiate, interfere and play with the role of portraiture as a tool for the crafting and performance of public personae.  

Image: Gavin Hurley, Standing on Moonlight, 2021, courtesy of the artist.

A picture is a whole world unto itself.

Step beyond the frame and see what you find. Background Matters asks what can be revealed when we view the sitter of a portrait in the expanded field of their surroundings. In bringing the background to the fore, this exhibition subverts the hierarchy of subject and setting to consider the portraiture of Aotearoa New Zealand from a fresh vantage point.

Image: Nicolette Page, Carmen, Oil on board, 2012. Collection New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Gift of the artist

From the early 1930s Toss Woollaston’s approach to portrait painting was radical, resulting in what Jill Trevelyan calls “New Zealand’s first modernist portrait”, Figures from Life, 1936. His portraiture was unlike anything produced in the country to this time.

Image: M T Woollaston, Figures from Life, 1936. Oil and charcoal, Collection Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Colin McCahon, 1954.

This exhibition documents the journey one takes when settling in Aotearoa from elsewhere, away from the notion of home and in search of belonging.

What began as a collection of portraits recording individual migrant journeys, A Migrant’s Path, has evolved into a fictional series, No. 13. Together these photographs provide a candid depiction of migration stories, colourism, mental health, and cultural identity.

Image: Abhi Chinniah, The Portal, photography. 2024

Robyn Kahukiwa’s artworks have made a difference to Māori. They have provided not only beauty and strength but inroads into our mātauranga, and the multi-layered, inter-generational and ever-evolving stories that are part of our cultural landscape. Her work has become an alternate visual rendering of Aotearoa’s history, through the lens of a Māori woman.

Image: Robyn Kahukiwa, Portrait of a Woman, 1986, Private collection, Wellington

The Portrait Gallery is deeply hounored to have received a gift from the Adam Foundation of six portraits from the extensive private collection of Denis and Verna Adam. These works are by some of New Zealand’s leading artists and add a richness and breadth to the Gallery’s permanent collection.

Image: Denis and Verna Adam at the opening of the Adam Portraiture Award 2010

Telly Tuita’s fascination with portraiture stems from its ability to transform the persona of the sitter to whatever artist wishes to show. Born in Tonga in 1980, Tuita was abandoned by his parents as a baby. The lack of stories and imagery from his early life in Tonga have propelled him to create his performative self-portraits over the past 25 years.

Image: Telly Tuita, Tevolo Carmen 1 from Tevolo (Ghost) series, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Bergman Gallery

The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.

Image: Maryanne Shearman, Tuhi-Ao, oil on canvas (winner of The Adam Portraiture Award 2024)

Hiria paints meticulous, situated portraits of the people from her community in their environments, revealing the subtleties of Māori life and culture in the 21st century.

Image: Hiria Anderson-Mita, Breathe, 2020, private collection, courtesy of the artist

Image: Richard Lewer, The Waikato Wars, 2023. Photo Andrew Curtis

Love and marriage may be universal, but their mutual inclusivity is not. What can a wedding photograph tell us about the love shared between two people? How can portraiture better inform us about the experience of being in love? 

Presenting many previously unseen works, this exhibition showcases Ian Scott’s interest in the story of New Zealand painting and painters.

Image: Rita Angus in Taradale, 1987, Collection Art House Trust

Then and There, Here and Now: Portraits of Samoa presents historical and contemporary photographic portraits of Samoans, created by both New Zealand and Samoan photographers. The exhibition emphasises how Samoan heritage of self-presentation has continued or changed over time and space, through the examination of dress, tatau, gender, and relationships to home, community, and nature.

Image: Greg Semu, Self Portrait - the Fisher of Men - Matthew Chapter 4:19, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and The Arts House Trust Collection.

The first contemporary Indian Art exhibition in Aotearoa Invisible Narratives: Contemporary Indian creatives from Aotearoa by Kshetra Collective showcases the strength and expansiveness of contemporary New Zealand Indian art.

Image: A Place to Stand poster, featuring artworks by all Kshetra Collective artists designed by Tiffany Singh.

FacingTime: Portraits of Geoff by Euan Macleod, is an allegory on isolation, loss, technology and most importantly friendship created during the Covid-19 lockdown.  The series of 321 portraits depicts fellow artists Euan Macleod and Geoff Dixon’s daily communication on FaceTime, a godsend for so many isolated by the onset of the pandemic.

The Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award is a biennial competition that provides emerging Māori artists with the opportunity to showcase their talents on the national stage, while also playing an important role in recording and celebrating tūpuna and their stories.

Image: Forsyth Barr People’s Choice Award Winner, Ani Ligaliga

This monumental series of works by Hariata Ropata-Tangahoe traces her matriarchal whakapapa (genealogy) and honours her female tūpuna (ancestors).

Image: Hariata Ropata-Tangahoe Takutai Tangahoe (2021) acrylic on canvas, collection of the artist

In the Round: Portraits by Women Sculptors showcases and celebrates the work of women sculptors in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Curated by Milly Mitchell-Anyon, this exhibition creates a lineage of women sculptors, spanning the past century, and highlights the contributions of these artists to the field of figurative sculpture.

Image: Andrea du Chatenier, Black Haired Weeper with Tears of Gold, 2014, Collection Barry Hopkins Art Trust, Courtesy of Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato

Authors of Aotearoa focuses on the people who have shaped our country’s literary scene.

Curated by Liz Stringer Intern 2022 Brooke Pou.

Image: Susan Wilson, Witi Ihimaera, 2014. New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata Collection.