The Gallery runs a programme of regular and special events, often related to the exhibitions throughout the year.
Most events are free of charge and open to all ages unless otherwise indicated.
Join us in the Gallery as Adam Portraiture Award Judge Felicity Milburn discusses the exhibition and the process of judging the award with Gallery Director Jaenine Parkinson. Koha entry.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Come and visit the Gallery while finalist Clark Roworth paints a life model in the Gallery. He will be set up and painting live in the Gallery between 12pm and 3pm. This provides plenty of time to come throughout the day and see the artists progress.
This is a great opportunity to see the process and technique that goes into the artist’s work as we often show only the end product in this Gallery. Koha entry.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Join us for a Q+A with bestselling author Alison Jones. Alison will speak about her intellectual and emotional grappling with New Zealand's colonial past and what it means for our present and future in Aotearoa.
Join us in the Gallery for a kōrero between Liz Stringer Curatorial Intern, Karis Evans, and Otago University Professor of History, Angela Wanhalla.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Join artist Richard Lewer in his exhibition ‘What they didn’t teach me at school: Richard Lewer - The Waikato Wars’ at the Gallery.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Join us in the Gallery for a curator’s kōrero between Curator Christ Corson- Scott and our Gallery Director Jaenine Parkinson.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Located on beautiful Kaipara Harbour, the park contains the greatest collection of large-scale outdoor sculptures in New Zealand, with works by many of the world’s foremost sculptors.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Watch this Ovenden Lecture here: Ovenden Lecture 2023
Join us in the Gallery for the annual Ovenden Lecture, presented by Peter Simpson.
Peter Simpson’s topic for the Ovenden Lecture in 2023 is: ‘A beautiful head’: The Portraits of Colin McCahon, 1938-68. McCahon was not primarily a portrait artist but he did practice portraiture through much of his long career, especially in the first two decades Depending on how portraits are defined, McCahon made more than forty such works, ranging from drawings in pencil or ink to portraits in watercolours, oils or acrylics. His subjects included family members, close friends and colleagues, and anonymous people. Many are both striking and challenging. The fully illustrated lecture will trace the evolution of his portraiture through time, consider the various models, modes and methods he utilised, discuss the margins between portraiture and other figurative subjects, and focus on the most important examples from Elespie Forsyth in 1938 to Gordon H. Brown in 1968.
Peter Simpson has degrees from Canterbury and Toronto universities and taught for 50 years at universities in Canada and New Zealand. He has written and edited many books about New Zealand literature, art and cultural history, including Bloomsbury South: The Arts in Christchurch 1933-53 and titles on Ronald Hugh Morrieson, Allen Curnow, Kendrick Smithyman, Charles Brasch, Leo Bensemann and Colin McCahon. Since the mid-1990s he has curated four exhibitions and published five books about McCahon, with another due next March from Te Papa Press called Dear Colin Dear Ron on McCahon’s correspondence with Ron O’Reilly. In 2016 he curated Leo Bensemann and Friends: Portraiture and The Group (which included McCahon) for the New Zealand Portrait Gallery; in 2017 he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Non-Fiction. He lives in Auckland.
Peter Simpson
Join us in the Gallery, with Ksherta Collective artist, and founder of Indian Ink theatre company Jacob Rajan.
Join us in the Gallery for a panel discussion featuring all seven artists from the Kshetra collective:
Sarah Dutt, Rafik Patel, Jacob Rajan, Mandrika Rupa, Mandy Rupa-Reid, Tiffany Singh and Shruti Yatri.
Saturday Sittings is cancelled this month due to our Gallery Changing over exhibitions.
We will be back in September in the Gallery as usual.
Sorry, and than you for your patience.
Haere mai! Come into the Gallery and be first to hear who the community has voted as our Forsyth Barr People’s Choice Winner for The Kingii Tuheitia Portraiture Award 2023!
Saturday Sittings is cancelled for July and August. We will be back in September in the Gallery as usual.
Sorry, and than you for your patience.
Join us in the Gallery with 4 of our Kingii Tuheitia Portraiture Award Finalists, Ngāwini Keelan, Tia Barrett, Ngaroma Riley and Stevei Houkamau.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Join Euan Macleod and Greg O'Brien in the Gallery to hear the artist and the face of Euan’s portraits discuss the works in the exhibition ‘Facing Time”.
Do you secretly write poetry on your phone, in your journal, on the bus? Do the words writer or poet make you recoil, but in-secret, you want to say, "I'm a writer" ? This workshop is for you.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Join us in the Gallery surrounded by the beautiful collection of mahi toi in the Kingii Tuheitia exhibition to discuss being Tangata whenua working and creating in the Aotearoa arts industry.
Join us as our Judges, Steve Gibbs (Ngāi Tāmanuhiri, Rongowhakaata, Rongomaiwahine) Graham Hoete aka "Mr G" (Ngati Awa, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngati Ranginui) and Lisa Reihana (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Hine, Ngāi Tūteauru, Ngāi Tupoto) discuss their prize-winning choices and the process of judging the Award.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Join us in the Gallery for Dr Mark Stocker’s lecture on artist Molly Macalister, whose work features in our exhibition In the Round: Portraits by Women Sculptors, curated by Milly Mitchell-Anyon
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
Join three Pōneke based poets in a discussion about aesthetics and authorship.
Have a go at portraiture in a relaxed setting with our free monthly drawing sessions.
