This chronology documents the development of the infrastructure of the visual arts in New Zealand following World War II.
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1945–9
The war ends. The Labour government (1935–49) creates a welfare state, which promises all citizens security ‘from cradle to grave’. Determined to avoid another depression, Labour follows policies of economic stabilisation and austerity. This frustrates New Zealanders hungry for consumer choice and luxuries. Women who have been ‘manpowered’ into the labour force during the war are now expected to resume domestic roles. Maori have begun to migrate from their tribal areas into the cities. In 1949, the National Party becomes government and stays in power until 1957. It pledges to relax austerity and import restrictions.
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1945
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Local art societies are the most important venues for exhibiting contemporary work. Begun in 1927, the artist-organised The Group exhibitions in Christchurch are also important as a more progressive alternative to the art societies. There are public art galleries in the four main centres: the Auckland City Art Gallery; National Art Gallery, Wellington (commandeered by the Air Force during the war and not reopened until 1949); Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch; and Dunedin Public Art Gallery. There are also provincial galleries, including the Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui, and the Bishop Suter Art Gallery, Nelson. All these galleries have limited funding, are extremely conservative, and show little contemporary work. There are few other venues, though artists occasionally exhibit in places like Progressive Books, Auckland, and the French Maid Coffee House, Wellington.
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The quarterly journal Art in New Zealand changes its format and becomes The Arts in New Zealand before being superseded by the Yearbook of the Arts in New Zealand (1945–51). After the Yearbooks, there are no specialist periodicals on the visual arts until Ascent in 1967. Important sources of information on overseas art are The Studio and the Illustrated London News.
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1946
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Gordon Tovey is appointed first National Supervisor of Art and Crafts for the Department of Education. Over the next twenty years, he is a dominant force in art education, bringing radical approaches developed from British experiments to New Zealand. Tovey stresses psychological development over the skills acquisition, and encourages children to experiment freely. He is an early advocate of biculturalism, encouraging the teaching of Maori cultural activities alongside European ones to both Maori and Pakeha children. Tovey oversees the induction of Maori artists, such as Cliff Whiting (Whanau-a-Apanui) and Paratene Matchitt (Whanau-a-Apanui), into art education in the 1950s. His support will prove crucial in the development of contemporary Maori art. Tovey retires in 1966.
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The Architectural Centre is formed in Wellington as a think-tank for modernist architecture, design, and town planning.
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1947
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The Art Galleries and Museums Association of New Zealand is founded to raise standards and foster co-operation among institutions. The first Association of New Zealand Art Societies Travelling Scholarship for overseas study is awarded to Clifford Murray. It is the only significant award available at this time.
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The journal Landfall is established by Charles Brasch, recently returned from the UK. Primarily a vehicle for New Zealand literature, this polemical quarterly also contains commentary and criticism on visual art. Landfall becomes a mouthpiece for the assertion of a national identity in arts and letters.
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1948
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The conservative Christchurch City Council refuses the gift of Frances Hodgkins’s watercolour The Pleasure Garden (c. 1933) to its Robert McDougall Art Gallery, provoking an outcry from the art community. The gift is finally accepted in 1951. A Maori Community Centre opens in Auckland providing a meeting place for Maori living away from their own tribal areas.
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1949
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The Gallery of Helen Hitchings opens in Wellington, showing contemporary New Zealand art, craft, and design. The Gallery closes in 1951, when Hitchings travels to London with an exhibition including work by Rita Angus, Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston, and Louise Henderson.
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Following the change of government, production of the National Film Unit’s newsreel Weekly Review is stopped for alleged left-wing bias. The National Film Unit had been established in 1941 to publicise the war effort.
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1950s
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The Korean war begins. New Zealand sends frigates and a small number of troops. The economy benefits from the rise in wool prices caused by the war. Prosperity and full employment continue until 1967. The decade is marked by a steady stream of immigrants, mainly from Britain but also including Irish and Dutch. There is an increase in the number and significance of the self-employed (small farmers, proprietors, etc). Commodities, particularly household durables like washing machines, refrigerators, and electric stoves, become increasingly available.
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1950
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Sir Apirana Ngata (Ngati Porou) dies. A prominent Maori leader, he had spearheaded the ‘Ngata Revival’, which fostered traditional Maori arts. Under Ngata’s vision, marae were built and restored as a focus for the assertion of tribal identity.
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The first National Art Gallery Travelling Scholarship for overseas study is awarded to painter Paul Olds. Later recipients include John Drawbridge and Bill Culbert (both 1957) and Barrie Bates (1959), who will later become Billy Apple. All recipients use the scholarship to study in England. The last award is made in 1960.
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1951
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The Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, and the Canterbury School of Arts, Christchurch, become university faculties.
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The Maori Women’s Welfare League is founded. Its objectives are to further the welfare of the Maori people, to promote fellowship and understanding between Maori and Pakeha, to instruct Maori women in the care of home and children and to encourage the practice of Maori arts.
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1952
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Eric Westbrook is appointed director of the Auckland City Art Gallery. He is the first New Zealand art gallery director with a professional background. Westbrook was influenced by the British model of civic galleries, which sought to popularise contemporary art.
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Only three dramatic feature films are produced in New Zealand between 1940 and 1970. All are from Pacific Films and are largely the work of John O’Shea. They are Broken Barrier (1952), Runaway (1964), and Don’t Let It Get You (1966).
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The first issue of the magazine Te Ao Hou: The New World is published by the Department of Maori Affairs, giving a voice to Maori interests. The diverse content encompasses mythology, history, art, and practical advice on how to adapt to the contemporary Pakeha world.
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1953
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Wellington’s Architectural Centre opens a gallery. Its diverse programme will address architectural and town planning issues as well as represent advanced taste in art.
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1954
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Object and Image at the Auckland City Art Gallery is the first major exhibition of abstract work by New Zealand artists. Included are Louise Henderson, Colin McCahon, and Milan Mrkusich.
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1956
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Peter Tomory becomes director of Auckland City Art Gallery. He develops and extends the course Westbrook has set.
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The annual Kelliher Art Prize—for the best oil painting by a New Zealand artist of a New Zealand scene painted in a realistic manner—is set up by Henry Kelliher, founder of Dominion Breweries. The first winner is Leonard Mitchell. The competition is prestigious and popular—the public face of New Zealand art. The prize continues to be awarded until 1983.
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The first monograph on a living New Zealand artist is published, E.H. McCormick’s Eric Lee-Johnson.
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1957
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In Auckland, Peter Webb opens a dealer gallery concentrating on the work of contemporary New Zealand artists. Argus House is not financially successful and closes within two years. Gallery 91, opening in Christchurch in 1959, is another short-lived dealer gallery, closing after less than a year.
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To expose the provinces to contemporary art, the Auckland City Art Gallery organises three touring exhibitions: Eight New Zealand Painters (1957), Eight New Zealand Painters II (1958) and Eight New Zealand Painters III (1959).
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1958
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A slump in the international price of dairy products causes a balance of payments crisis in New Zealand. Restrictions are imposed on the importation of all works of art, including loan exhibitions as part of the measures to stabilise the economy.
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The National Art Gallery refuses the exhibition British Abstract Painting, toured by the Auckland City Art Gallery. The Architectural Centre Gallery comes to the rescue, exhibiting the show in two instalments.
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1960s
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Led by Keith Holyoake, the National Party wins the 1960 election. The Holyoake years (1960-72) are typified by prosperity, full employment, and social consensus. The demand for labour accelerates the influx of Polynesian immigrants. Increase in social activism is a harbinger of things to come as is the steady shift in cultural focus from the UK to the US. The demographic drift to Auckland is particularly marked among Maori. In 1966, President Johnson visits to whip up support for the Vietnam War. Towards the end of the decade, anti-war protests become highly visible and increasingly broad based.
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1960
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During the 1960s, dealer galleries become more important and successful. New galleries in Auckland include: The Gallery, later Ikon Gallery (opens 1960); Barry Lett Gallery, later RKS Art (1965-); and New Vision Gallery (1965-86). Peter McLeavey Gallery opens in 1968 in Wellington.
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The Hay’s Art Competition is sponsored in Christchurch ‘to encourage a wider appreciation of the work of contemporary New Zealand artists and to provide facilities for artists to show and sell their paintings’. The three expert judges (including Peter Tomory) fail to agree and three prizes are awarded.
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The principle of direct government aid to the arts is acknowledged. Sixty thousand pounds are made available for distribution by an interim Arts Advisory Council.
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1961
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The Hunn Report sees racial integration as inevitable, assimilation probable. The report outrages many Maori. Nevertheless integration becomes official policy, exemplified in state house ‘pepper potting’, by which Maori are interspersed throughout Pakeha communities and thus prevented from maintaining their own networks.
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1963
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The First Maori Festival of the Arts is held during the Ngaruawahia Centennial and includes work by Paratene Matchitt (Whanau-a-Apanui), Arnold Wilson (Tuhoe), and Selwyn Muru (Ngatikuri, Te Aupouri), as well as Theo Schoon. Practical demonstrations of carving, weaving, basketmaking and flax preparation are also given.
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An act of Parliament establishes the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua. The Institute trains artists in traditional forms so they can support marae-building in their tribal areas and supply the tourist market.
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Influential English art writer Herbert Read visits. He defends abstraction, encourages the building of public art galleries and praises local work.
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The influential American art magazine Artforum is first published in 1962. Within a few years, it is subscribed to by art school libraries, and then by some artists and writers. However, it is not available in bookshops until the late 1980s.
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1964
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The Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council is established (replacing the Arts Advisory Council) to provide financial assistance to artists and art organisations.
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1965
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The creation of municipal art awards, such as the Manawatu Prize for Contemporary Art, demonstrates the growing status of local art as an expression of community interests and identity.
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1966
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Painter Michael Illingworth becomes the first Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago. The annual fellowship brings such artists as Michael Smither (1970), Gretchen Albrecht (1981), and Julia Morison (1988) to Dunedin.
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1967
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The Photographer’s Eye is the first major exhibition from the Museum of Modern Art to tour New Zealand. It will be followed by more shows from MOMA.
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A new visual-arts magazine Ascent: A Journal of the Arts in New Zealand commences publication. It lasts only five issues, ceasing publication in 1969.
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1968
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Wong Sing Tai wins the inaugural Benson & Hedges Art Award of $3,000 in a blaze of publicity. The richest art award in the country is an early indication of a burgeoning commercial interest in the benefits of art sponsorships. The last award is made in 1980.
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1969
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Gordon H. Brown and Hamish Keith’s An Introduction to New Zealand Painting 1839–1967 is published. The first substantial publication surveying New Zealand art, it documents and exemplifies a search for national identity. The Introduction can be seen as an extension of Tomory’s project of delineating a specific character for New Zealand art. Brown and Keith have both worked at the Auckland City Art Gallery.
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The New Zealand Maori Council organises the first public gallery exhibition of contemporary Maori art at the National Art Gallery, Wellington. It is the first time Maori have attempted to use such a venue to showcase their work.
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1970s
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The last troops return from Vietnam. Under Norman Kirk, the Labour Party comes to power (1972–75). Great Britain’s entry into the EEC in 1973 marks the end of the special relationship between New Zealand and Britain. 1974 is the end of the golden weather: Kirk dies, the abrasive Robert Muldoon becomes opposition leader, oil prices climb, wool and meat prices drop, New Zealand enters a recession, and inflation and unemployment are on the up. In 1975, National becomes government. The Muldoon years (1975–84) are marked by large-scale economic intervention. The social fabric remains underpinned by the welfare state. The government introduces ‘think big’ policies of industrial expansion aimed at exploiting natural resources and making New Zealand self-sufficient in fuel.
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1970
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Civic pride leads to the creation of new public galleries in the provinces and the rehousing of old ones. These include the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, which opens in 1970 in a converted cinema, with Leon Narbey’s kinetic light environment Real Time.
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1972
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The feminist journal Broadsheet is founded. In 1973, Twenty Women Artists is mounted at the Auckland Society of Arts as part of the first United Women’s Convention. It is the forerunner of the many women’s exhibitions, which occur later in the decade.
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The first of three touring exhibitions surveying New Zealand painting from 1900 to 1960 is curated by Gordon H. Brown. Each covers two decades. The second is launched in 1975, the third in 1981. Brown notes the essentially conservative, art-society-dominated context in which most art was made over the period.
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Meanwhile, a surge of solo retrospectives of living artists begins. It persists into the mid-1980s. Many of these shows tour and are marked by substantial publications. While Brown’s shows record the context in which much New Zealand work has been produced, these retrospectives give significant critical attention to artists as individuals.
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Alternative Cinema, a filmmakers’ co-operative, is formed to help foster non-mainstream film.
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1973
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The New Zealand Maori Artists and Writers Society (later renamed Nga Puna Waihanga) holds its first hui (meeting) at Te Kaha. These hui continue to be held annually on marae throughout the country, affirming an allegiance to the tribal base of Maori art.
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Painters Colin McCahon and William Sutton are included in the first Sydney Biennale. There will be a New Zealand presence in all subsequent Biennales, with the largest number of artists being six in 1982. A substantial retrospective I Will Need Words: Colin McCahon’s Word and Number Paintings is organised as a satellite of the 1984 Biennale. Increased participation in overseas events allows artists to see their work outside the national context.
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1974
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A new School Certificate art syllabus includes coverage of contemporary Pakeha and Maori art.
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Photo-Forum magazine begins publication under the editorship of John B. Turner. During the 1970s specialist photography galleries open, including Snaps in Auckland and Photo-Forum Gallery in Wellington.
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Some Recent American Art, an exhibition of minimal, post-minimal and conceptual work, is shown at the Auckland City Art Gallery. The Gallery continues to stage ambitious overseas blockbuster exhibitions throughout the decade.
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1975
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The out-going Labour government creates the Waitangi Tribunal to investigate Maori land grievances. Maori protestors march from the far North to Parliament in Wellington, evidencing a new militancy.
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A Minister for the Arts is appointed.
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Post-object art receives strong institutional backing despite its anti-institutional stance. From 1975 to 1977, Auckland City Art Gallery offers its Project Programme. In 1976, the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, presents the exhibition Post-Object Art in New Zealand and Australia, and Jim Allen and Wystan Curnow’s book New Art: Some Recent New Zealand Sculpture and Post-Object Art is published. In the 1979 Sydney Biennale, New Zealand is represented by Bruce Barber and Philip Dadson, key figures in the post-object movement.
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1976
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Art New Zealand begins publication. It becomes the principal local art magazine, featuring writing from the populist to the scholarly.
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The market for contemporary New Zealand art begins to mature. Regular auctions are held by Cordy’s in Auckland, Dunbar Sloane in Wellington, and McCrostie in Christchurch. In 1978, Peter Webb Galleries holds the first of what become biannual auctions featuring contemporary New Zealand art.
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The New Zealand Maori Artists and Writers Society holds its first exhibition at the South Pacific Festival of the Arts in Rotorua, demonstrating the new directions being taken. Later in the year, the exhibition Contemporary Maori Art is organised by the Waikato Art Museum, Hamilton.
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The shell of the wharenui at the Hoani Waititi marae, Te Atatu, Auckland, is completed. It is the first non-tribal carved house, the first true urban marae.
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1977
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The Group show of 1977 at the Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery in Christchurch is the last of The Group shows. What had begun fifty years earlier as a radical alternative has become an institution.
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The 1970s sees the commissioning of works for public buildings, including murals by Robert Ellis, Patrick Hanly, and Ralph Hotere for Auckland International Airport in 1977.
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1978
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Protests continue over the alienation of Maori land. Police evict Ngati Whatua protesters from Bastion Point, tribal lands they have been occupying for 507 days. Protesters occupy Raglan Golf Course. This land is returned to its Maori owners the next year.
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The Council for Maori and South Pacific Arts is established under the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council in recognition of the different cultural needs and the desire for self determination of Maori and Pacific Island groups.
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The network of dealers expands as Denis Cohn Gallery and Peter Webb Galleries open in Auckland. As an indication of the increasing acceptability and status of contemporary art significant collections begin to be built up by corporations such as Fletcher Challenge and the Bank of New Zealand, as well as by individuals.
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The New Zealand government presents Colin McCahon’s Victory over Death 2 (1970) to Australia. Prime Minister Muldoon claims it is a political ploy to draw attention to the visit of deputy Prime Minister Brian Talboys.
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The New Zealand Film Commission is established, creating an extraordinary increase in the production of feature films. Films with a strong local content include Sleeping Dogs (1977), Smash Palace (1982), Utu (1983), Vigil (1984), and Ruby and Rata (1990).
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1979
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100m² (1979-81) is established in Auckland as a multi-purpose artists’ space.
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1980s
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The fourth Labour government (1984-90) under Prime Minister David Lange and Finance Minister Roger Douglas introduces a wave of economic and social reforms aimed at reducing the role of the state in many areas of life, reversing the economic and social policies New Zealanders have taken for granted for two generations. The Lange government deny port access to American nuclear-powered and armed vessels, effectively excluding New Zealand from the ANZUS treaty. Later, legislation is passed making New Zealand nuclear-free. In the last years of the decade the stock market crash and political in-fighting cause the government to lose direction while public discontent rises. The economy fails to respond to free market stimuli and major companies start to collapse. Lange resigns.
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1980
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Matiu Rata, once Labour Minister of Maori Affairs, founds the Mana Motuhake (Separate Mana) party dedicated to the principles of Maori sovereignty. In 1982 and 1983, Broadsheet publishes Donna Awatere’s radical ‘Maori sovereignty’ articles. They are later collected into a book.
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Maori continue to use Pakeha structures in order to advance their interests. A Maori TV unit is established, and, in 1983, Te Karare, the Maori news, begins on TV. In 1983, the company Maori International is formed to promote Maori business interests.
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A collectively run Women’s Gallery (1980–4) opens in Wellington.
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1981
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A tour of New Zealand by the South African rugby team provokes broad-based protest, which turns into violent civil disturbances. The conflicts become a significant feature of contemporary social mythology and are a catalyst for debate about what sort of place New Zealand is.
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Drawing on the spirit of the Mildura Sculpture Triennials of the 1970s, which had featured extensive New Zealand representation, the first of three ANZARTs is held in Christchurch. These artist-organised events provide occasions for trans-Tasman dialogue. Favouring performance and installation work, they become the model for local events like F1: New Zealand Sculpture Project (1982) and Art in Dunedin (1984).
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The New Zealand Film Archive is established, recognising the cultural significance of New Zealand’s film history.
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1982
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The first kohanga reo (language nursery) is established to help foster the revival of the Maori language. In 1985, the first school teaching entirely in the Maori language is established.
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The Centre for Contemporary Art opens in Hamilton. The first privately funded public art gallery, it is administered by the Chartwell Trust.
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1983
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Theme shows and their catalogues become increasingly important as a focus for institutional and curatorial energies. Examples are New Image (1983), Drawing Analogies (1987), When Art Hits the Headlines (1987), and Nobodies (1989).
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People queue to see the exhibition America and Europe: A Century of Modern Masters: The Thyssen-Bornemisza collection on its New Zealand tour. In the next few years Auckland City Art Gallery will be associated with such as blockbusters Claude Monet: Painter of Light (1985). These exhibitions are achieved through sponsorship partnerships negotiated by director, Rodney Wilson. Meanwhile, the National Art Gallery, under Luit Bieringa, focuses on bringing in major contemporary overseas exhibitions, such as The British Show (1985) and Wild Visionary Spectral: New German Art (1986).
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Francis Pound’s book Frames on the Land: Early Landscape Painting in New Zealand is published. It is important in the contemporary domain as a critique of  Brown and Keith’s An Introduction to New Zealand Painting (re-released in an updated edition in 1982).
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Throughout the decade there is considerable interest in Australian contemporary art. In addition to ANZARTs, Rosalie Gascoigne, Adrian Hall, and Ken Unsworth have solo shows at the National Art Gallery over 1983 and 1984. Other Australian shows include Sighting References (1987), Advance Australian Painting (1988), and Imants Tillers 19301 (1989). The National Art Gallery, Auckland City Art Gallery, and Chartwell Trust assemble significant collections of contemporary Australian art.
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1984
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Te Maori is the first major exhibition of Maori taonga to be sent abroad. The loans are negotiated directly with the tribes, with museums recognised simply as ‘guardians’ of taonga. Consequently, the project is invested with immense tribal interest and prestige. Te Maori is shown at the Metropolitan Museum and a number of other American venues.
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1985
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The Waitangi Tribunal is given powers to examine Maori grievances going back to 1840 when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. Sir Paul Reeves, previously Archbishop of Aotearoa, is the first Maori to be appointed Governor-General.
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Artist-residencies in public galleries and educational facilities become increasingly common. In 1987, Auckland City Art Gallery appoints its first foreign artist-in-residence, Jorg Immendorff from West Germany. In 1989, the annual Moet et Chandon Fellowship, the first overseas residency specifically for New Zealand artists, is inaugurated.
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The incoming Labour government cancels plans to build a new National Art Gallery, and demands a rethink of the project along the lines of a Pacific Cultural Centre. The result is a proposal to build a mega-museum—the Museum of New Zealand—combining the collection and staffs of the National Art Gallery and National Museum. Biculturalism, empowering Maori in relation to their own cultural property, and the integration of art and history become the key principles of the project.
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Prices paid for contemporary and historical art continue to rise. The National Art Gallery pays a record $130,000 for Colin McCahon’s Practical Religion: The Resurrection of Lazarus Showing Mount Martha (1970). 1987 is the peak year with McCahon’s North Canterbury going for $160,000 at auction. It is also the year of the stock-market crash.
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Through its Arts Bonus scheme, Wellington City Council offers developers concessions on the height of their buildings if they commission a major public artwork as part of the project. Auckland and Christchurch City Councils adopt similar schemes. Results are mixed as the building industry booms.
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New Zealand artists are increasingly getting Australian dealers. Australian artists are also showing in New Zealand. This year, Richard Killeen and Gavin Chilcott show in Australia and John Nixon and Jenny Watson exhibit in New Zealand.
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1986
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A Wellington wharf shed is renovated and opens as Shed 11, an annex of the National Art Gallery specifically for contemporary art. Content/Context: A Survey of Recent New Zealand Art is one of the first exhibitions to take place there.
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In the late 1980s, postmodernism becomes a big deal. American publications—especially the anthologies New French Feminisms (1980) and The Anti-Aesthetic (1983), and Hal Foster’s collected essays Recodings (1985)—become required reading.
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Auckland’s glossy city magazine Metro publishes an interview with Francis Pound. ‘Francis Pound is rewriting the history of New Zealand art. The consequences—for all New Zealanders—may be profound’, claims Frank Stone. Metro establishes Auckland artists and art figures as fashionable celebrities through its articles and, more importantly, its gossip column, ‘Felicity Ferret’.
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On its return, Te Maori tours New Zealand (Te Hokinga Mai: The Return Home). The exhibition’s impact is enormous, as it attracts crowds of both Maori and Pakeha. It is supplemented by the exhibition Maori Art Today. Interest in Maori art and institutional support for it will continue to grow.
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1987
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Auckland’s Artspace is established, with financial assistance from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, in recognition of the need for a venue to operate in the space between public galleries and dealers.
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The worldwide stockmarket crash has an immediate impact on New Zealand. Among its effects is a decline in the purchase and sponsorship of art. This continues with the recession into the 1990s.
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The Maori Language Act establishes Maori as an official language. Maori terms are increasingly used in public life and many institutions acquire official Maori names. In 1990 the Maori and South Pacific Arts Council changes its name to Te Waka Toi (the vehicle for the conveyance of excellence in the arts).
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1988
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A retrospective Colin McCahon: Gates and Journeys at the Auckland City Art Gallery coincides with a growing interest in McCahon’s work by Australian audiences. Articles are published on his work in Australian and other overseas journals and in 1990 exhibitions are held in Australia and London.
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1990s
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Celebrations are held to mark the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. A considerable effort is made to generate a collective sense of nationalist pride and a spirit of biculturalism. Off-setting this are Maori protests against Pakeha hegemony, general pessimism about the state of the economy and considerable disenchantment with the fourth Labour government. The National Party comes to power in a landslide in 1990. It accelerates the introduction of new right policies, culling public spending, weakening organised labour and opening the economy up further to free-market competition. Although inflation is now well under control, unemployment continues to rise and the economy remains depressed.
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1990
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Many official government-funded projects are undertaken for the sesquicentennial of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. These include reestablishing a fleet of waka taua (carved war canoes), which assemble at Waitangi for the official Treaty commemoration service. Exhibitions also use the occasion of the sesquicentennial to explore Maori art and culture, and themes of racial politics in New Zealand. Following the controversial dismissal of Luit Bieringa, Jenny Harper is appointed Director of the National Art Gallery. One of her first actions is to purchase two turn-of-the-century academic portraits of Maori by C.F. Goldie. The purchase signals a shift in emphasis away from the contemporary, in preparation for the National Art Gallery becoming a department of the planned Museum of New Zealand. The following year Shed 11 is closed.
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1991
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With a change of government and the recession, the building of the new Museum of New Zealand is put on ice. Other institutions are hit by the user-pays philosophy and admission charges begin to be made. The Auckland City Art Gallery suffers budget cuts and it is mooted that it should raise money by selling off works from its collection. A Ministry of Arts and Culture is set up. Funding cuts for the arts are announced in the 1991 Budget. Corporate collections are sold off.