Travel back through history and across place – one artwork at a time
Since opening in 1888, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki has become home to
one of the largest public art collections in Aotearoa New Zealand. This collection
handbook illustrates more than 220 important and beloved New Zealand and
international artworks in the Gallery’s permanent and loan collections, and includes
a detailed history of how the collection, numbering some 17,000 works, was built.
The essay, by curator and art historian Julia Waite, shows how turning points in the
Gallery’s history reflect New Zealand’s cultural and political shifts over the past 135
years and demonstrates the power art has to speak cross-culturally.
The Collection Te Kohinga beautifully presents Auckland Art Gallery’s rich and
diverse art holdings, providing a frame through which we can view and understand
the past while looking forward to imagine the future. Connecting Aotearoa with
the world, the artworks illustrated in this book convey the breadth and depth of
the collection in a journey back through time and across place.

The Authors:
Kirsten Lacy is the director of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Prior to taking up
this role Lacy was deputy director at the National Gallery of Australia and director
at Shepparton Art Museum, in Victoria, Australia, where she led a large-scale
redevelopment. Since joining Auckland Art Gallery’s team she has worked to
increase the representation of both New Zealand and world-leading international
artists in the collection and exhibition programme, attracted new philanthropic
funding, and supported publishing through diverse channels, including the Gallery’s
magazine, Art Toi, which is published three times a year.

Julia Waite is curator, New Zealand art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Her
research interests are focused on the development of modern art in New Zealand
and global modernisms. She co-curated Gordon Walters: New Vision (2018) and
Louise Henderson: From Life (2019), both of which toured New Zealand and have
associated publications that she contributed to and co-edited. Her most recent
large-scale exhibition, Bill Culbert | Slow Wonder (2021), included works never
before presented in Aotearoa New Zealand and is accompanied by a catalogue.
Waite is an arts commentator on Radio New Zealand, regularly contributes to
publications, and is studying for a PhD in Art History at the University of Auckland.