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Featured
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
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
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.
The Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award is a competition that encourages emerging Māori artists to create portraits of their tūpuna (ancestors) in any medium.
Image: People’s Choice Award Winner, Eleanor Wright
We are proud to present in collaboration with the Kiingitanga an exhibition outlining The Kīngitanga movement and 161 years of Māori monarchy.
Pictured: Te Kiingi Tuheitia Tokotoko
Our Adam winners return!
In 2020, Aotearoa’s most prestigious and popular portraiture prize turned twenty-one. To celebrate the occasion, we are showing all 11 winning portraits.
Image: André Brönnimann, Sisters, 2015, oil on canvas. NZPG collection.
This collection of works by the eminent painter and war artist Peter McIntyre (1910 - 1995) and his daughter, photographer Sara McIntyre provides an engaging portrait of the small central north island village of Kākahi through a unique pairing of their works.
Image: Peter McIntyre, Maori Children, King Country, 1963. Private collection.
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?
Image: Liz Maw, Elizabeth, 1999, Oil on board, Private collection
Star Gossage’s paintings show people as interconnected; inseparable from wairua (spirit), whenua (land), whakapapa (ancestry) or whanuau (family).
Image: Star Gossage, Pa Girls, 2013, oil on board, Private collection, Auckland
This exhibition celebrates the ongoing relevance and standing of the Alexander Turnbull Library, 100 years after it first opened.
Image: Gottfried Lindauer, Mrs. Ngahui Rangitakaiwaho of Wairarapa, Dec 21st 180 (ATL ref.G- 515) courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.
Marti Friedlander (1928-2016) is one of our most prominent and highly regarded photographers. This exhibition will show and explore the range and diversity of Marti’s portraits, including many that have never been shown publicly before.
Image: Marti Friedlander Self-portrait 1964
Mostly known and admired for his renditions of the Canterbury landscape, Bill Sutton also attained an outstanding reputation as a portraitist during his lifetime.
Image: Bill Sutton, Unknown Man, 1948, oil on canvas, Collection: New Zealand Portrait Gallery
New Zealand’s premier portrait prize returns in 2020.
Image: Gwyn Hughes, Stig and the Taniwha, Winner People’s Choice Award
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
Celebrating 175 years of Chinese life in New Zealand, with close to 100 compelling and rarely seen photographs, you can follow the story from the first settler Appo Hocton who arrived in 1842 to new migrants in the 2000s, from pioneering goldminers and merchants to architects and entrepreneurs, from early settlers to established communities.
Featuring a new artwork by Wellington-based artist Kerry Ann Lee.
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.
The idea of a portrait by Wellington illustrator Margaret Tolland, to represent a conservation view with the interests, projects, and species that each person is dedicated to working with.
My Life To Live tells the story and celebrates the immense contribution of refugee background workers in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Image: Ehsan Hazaveh
Images of New Zealanders at work over the length of the country for the past thirty years.
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.
Two photographers, one hundred years apart.
Image: Left: Edith Amituanai Right: George Robson Crummer
A look at artists’ self-portraits, which allow great freedom for artists to express their current moods, thoughts, feeling, and style. These artworks appear like diary entries, as they reflect the artist's present state of mind.
Curated by Robert Laking
Image: Alan Pearson, Self-portrait, Collection New Zealand Portrait Gallery
Best known for his sublime, ethereal landscapes with dense narratives, A Portrait of Ūawa Tolaga Bay He Whakaahua o Ūawa is a major survey of Walsh's portrait paintings.
This exhibition asks what meaning is conveyed by the choice of clothing in a portrait?
Curated by Robert Laking
This exhibition tracks a century of artistic renderings and re-imagining of one of New Zealand's greatest writers.
Curated by Penelope Jackson
Image: Anne Rice, Portrait of Katherine Mansfield, 1918, Collection Te Papa Tongarewa
This exhibition celebrates the life and art of expatriate New Zealand artist Douglas MacDiarmid.
Image: Douglas MacDiarmid, Self Portrait on wet paving stones, 2010-13, Acrylic on paper, Private collection, Wellington
Julia Holden’s art practice breaches perceptions of what painting and portraiture can be. This exhibition brings together a selection of works produced over the last seven years to illustrate the various ways Holden has pushed boundaries; combining painting with performance, photography and animated film.
Situated Selves shows how the once popular studio portrait was eclipsed in popularity by an informal, documentary style from the 1960s onwards.
image: Brian Brake, 'Doreen Blumhardt' 1980
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Winner of the People’s Choice Award, Justine Turnbull
Spanning 50 years of Hodgkins’ life, this exhibition is curated by art historian and 19th century specialist in women artists Dr Pamela Gerrish Nunn.
Portrait+ brings together an eclectic selection of New Zealand’s creative women, pairing their portraits with their works. We hope to expand on the notion of portraiture as a medium of likeness and identity - especially in the case of artists with their creative expression offering an alternative representation of self.
Image: Nigel Brown, Dame Gillian Whitehead at Dusky, 2008 Acrylic on board, New Zealand Portrait Gallery
Direct and uncompromising, the portraits in Eye to Eye explore the dynamics of looking shared between artist and subject, subject and viewer.
Covering over 300 years of cartoon portraiture, this exhibition shows how modern caricature has evolved from the print media into a predominantly digital art form.
Curated by Dr Oliver Stead
Image: Chris Slane, Dr Ropata
This exhibition brings together paintings from the New Zealand Portrait Gallery’s collection united by their blue consciousness.
Curated by Hanahiva Rose
This is a small selection of the Portrait Gallery’s new portrait acquisitions from 2016.
Wayne Youle takes the portrait and reinvents it, demonstrating how portraiture can assert itself as a viable and relevant art form today.
Curated by Helen Kedgley
Image: Wayne Youle, Ralph Hotere
A photograph captures a split second in time and records it for history. Whether colour or black and white, digital or film, it is a moment which can’t be repeated or replicated. Capture exhibits those precious one off moments.
The portraits in this exhibition were all created by the Christchurch-based artists known as The Group, in the middle decades of last century.
Image: Caroline Oliver, 1940, Leo Bensemann, Private Collection
An exploration of the role portraits play in family history through 17th and 18th century paintings from the Rokeby collection.
Image: Unknown artist, Untitled (Lady with a Pointer Dog) oil on canvas, private collection
Shannon Novak uses the language of geometric abstraction and colour to create portraits of people who have inspired and influenced him - his mentors, heroes and family members.
These previously unseen self-portraits reflect Day’s shift in style from his early cubist works to his fauvist period and then to his later more realistic work.
This exhibition showcases self –portraits from the New Zealand Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection.
Image: Campbell Smith, Mask, Self-Portrait, Woodcut print on paper, Gift of the Artist in 2013, Collection New Zealand Portrait Gallery
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image:Sisters (André Brönnimann)
A selection of the Portrait Gallery’s new portrait acquisitions from 2015.
A Life Lived Intensely explores the relationship between Expressionist painter, Alan Pearson, his subjects and the individual experiences that lie behind each sitting.
Image: Alan Pearson, Time Waits for No One, 2005-6, Oil, Private collection
This exhibition commemorates the city’s 150th anniversary as the capital, with a unique and entertaining look at the city and its people from 1840 to the present, through the medium of portraiture.
Image: Carmen Rupe at the Purple Onion Photograph by Ans Westra
A unique view of the impact of English navigator Captain James Cook’s three visits to New Zealand and the wider Pacific region in the late 18th century by three well-established New Zealand artists – Nigel Brown, Lisa Reihana and Gavin Hurley.
A selection of portraits of prominent New Zealand musicians and poets from the New Zealand Portrait Gallery collection.
Who Am I focuses on identity through the art of portraiture.
Toured by the Dowse Museum
Image: Louise Lewis, The visitor, 1969, Collection The Dowse
As the first of the major WWI art exhibitions, it takes a broad-brush stroke, telling the story of an appalling, inhuman, war in one building, rounded out by the inclusion of artists, architects, historians and novelists who have shaped our changing views on the war
Curated by Gavin McLean
French traveller Quentin Dumortier walked the streets of Wellington, taking photographic portraits of passer-by
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Tim (Henry Christian-Slane)
A retrospective exhibition of the portrait art of Piera McArthur
Early New Zealand Portraits by William Beetham
Curated by Jane Vial
Image: William Beetham, Ruth Te Rauparaha, Collection Te Papa Tongarewa
Image: Marianne Muggeridge, Lucy in her green dress, Collection New Zealand Portrait Gallery
Image: Ray Paparaoa Auckland 1958, Collection ATL
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: 3 nights, A mirror and Loads of Coffee (Stephen Martyn Welch)
Joanna Braithwaite, Birds of a Feather, 2006 oil on canvas, private collection
W. A (Bill Sutton), Trevor Hatherton, President of the Royal Society, 1985-1989. 1989 oil on canvas
Source: Parliamentary Service
Glenn Colquhoun at Dusky – Portrait of poet Glenn Colquhoun by Nigel Brown
Image: Martin Ball, Jenny Shipley
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Kayte (Harriet Bright)
Nathaniel Dance, Captain Clerke 1776
25 Jan 2009 A live Portrait Session. Stephen Martyn Welch paints Roger Hall before a live audience from 11am – 5pm, Collection New Zealand Portrait Gallery
Image: Delecia Sampero, Tama Iti
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: The Blue Girl (Irene Ferguson)
Douglas MacDiarmid, Rita Cook, 1945, Collection University of Otago
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Portrait of Hans (Freeman White)
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Sasha Lees, See Me
Winner People’s Choice Award 2022
New Zealand’s premier portrait prize returns in 2020.
Image: Gwyn Hughes, Stig and the Taniwha, Winner People’s Choice Award
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Winner of the People’s Choice Award, Justine Turnbull
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image:Sisters (André Brönnimann)
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Tim (Henry Christian-Slane)
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: 3 nights, A mirror and Loads of Coffee (Stephen Martyn Welch)
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Kayte (Harriet Bright)
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: The Blue Girl (Irene Ferguson)
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Portrait of Hans (Freeman White)
The biennial Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s premier portrait prize.
Image: Self Portrait (Ryuzo Nishida)
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
The Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award is a competition that encourages emerging Māori artists to create portraits of their tūpuna (ancestors) in any medium.
Image: People’s Choice Award Winner, Eleanor Wright
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?
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 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.
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?
Image: Liz Maw, Elizabeth, 1999, Oil on board, Private collection
This exhibition celebrates the ongoing relevance and standing of the Alexander Turnbull Library, 100 years after it first opened.
Image: Gottfried Lindauer, Mrs. Ngahui Rangitakaiwaho of Wairarapa, Dec 21st 180 (ATL ref.G- 515) courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.
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
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
A look at artists’ self-portraits, which allow great freedom for artists to express their current moods, thoughts, feeling, and style. These artworks appear like diary entries, as they reflect the artist's present state of mind.
Curated by Robert Laking
Image: Alan Pearson, Self-portrait, Collection New Zealand Portrait Gallery
This exhibition asks what meaning is conveyed by the choice of clothing in a portrait?
Curated by Robert Laking
Portrait+ brings together an eclectic selection of New Zealand’s creative women, pairing their portraits with their works. We hope to expand on the notion of portraiture as a medium of likeness and identity - especially in the case of artists with their creative expression offering an alternative representation of self.
Image: Nigel Brown, Dame Gillian Whitehead at Dusky, 2008 Acrylic on board, New Zealand Portrait Gallery
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}