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.

This exhibition affirms the pioneering legacy and leadership of senior Māori artist, broadcaster, playwright, orator, teacher, musician, and repository of tribal knowledge - Selwyn Muru.

Image: copyright Ans Westra, courtesy of Suite Tirohanga

2022 marks the 60th anniversary of the Fletcher Trust Collection, one of the most prestigious private art collections in Aotearoa. Perhaps best known for its landscapes and works of abstraction, the collection has long featured important figure-based pictures. Gathered Voices presents a selection of such pictures—pieces of national significance that tell rich and varied stories about this place and those who call it home.

Image: Robyn Kahukiwa, Aroha, 1971. Courtesy of the artist and Fletcher Trust Collection, Tāmaki Makaurau.

A fresh take on stories of Ngā Pākanga o Aotearoa, the New Zealand Wars, as portrayed in film. This exhibition shows the making and remaking of our history as interpreted through various films, television series, and digital storytelling formats. Through a series of portraits of people involved the making of the films, the exhibition highlights tāngata whenua agency on both sides of the camera.

Image: Courtesy of Aotearoa Film Heritage Trust and Te Tumu Whakaata New Zealand Film Commission

This exhibition, the Gallery’s first single-collector exhibition, pays tribute to the significant collection amassed by curator, art historian and long-time director of New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata, Avenal McKinnon.

Image: Wayne Youle, Friends and Strangers (Avenal McKinnon) 2016-17 Courtesy of the artist and {Suite}

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

Image: Sasha Lees, See Me
Winner People’s Choice Award 2022

Raymond McIntyre is one of the most distinguished expatriate New Zealand painters of the early twentieth century. Frustrated by New Zealand’s limited art scene at the time he left New Zealand in 1909 aged 30 to pursue a career in London and never returned.

Image: Raymond McIntyre, Phyllis Constance Cavendish, c. 1913 Collection of the GJ Moyle Collection Trust.

When photographer David Cook moved into Hamilton East, he was drawn to the colorful, creative and chaotic lives of his neighbours. With camera in hand, he explored back-yard mechanics to Sunday roasts, inventing an intimate documentary of a State Housing suburb in the 90s, moments before gentrification set in.

Image: David Cook, Plunket Terrace, From the ‘Jellicoe & Bledisloe’ series, 1993-1997

This exhibition focuses on the unfinished portrait, which the New Zealand Portrait Gallery has numerous examples of within its collection.

Image: Leonard Mitchell, Mary-Annette Hay, 1945. NZPG Collection.

Face Time: Portraits of the 1980s is all about that ‘Big Eighties Energy’ that we have come to associate with the decade. The hair, clothes and faces, are recognisably of that time. Face Time also traverses some of the tectonic social, political and economic shifts that occurred during the decade.

Image: Michel Illingworth, A man and a woman, 1986. Private Collection.

Centred in Aotearoa, Autonomous Bodies tackles issues of beauty, power, and representation through works that convey authentic experiences, from the everyday to the divine, seeking to foreground diverse perspectives, including those of Māori, Pasifika, and LBGTQ+ artists.

Ayesha Green, Soil from Papa, 2018, Private Collection.

Friends’ Favourites is a celebration of the Friends incredible efforts over the past 25 years. The carefully selected works in this exhibition were chosen by the Friends Committee from the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Collection, highlighting a wide selection of works from our permanent collection.

Glenda Randerson, Barbara Anderson, Oriental Parade, Wellington, 1999. NZPG collection.