Auckland Attractions

Venue: Auckland Art Gallery    When: Daily

A delightful mixture of indigenous art - Maori and settlers' - with a sprinkling of the international, the Auckland Art Gallery is a great success. Tall white neo-classical walls house the renovated interior and a series of pleasantly-sized galleries, showing off both the permanent collection and visiting exhibitions.

Designed by Melbourne architects John H Grainger and Charles A D'Ebro, the French Château-style building was opened in 1887 as Auckland City's Free Public Library and Municipal Offices, with the gallery space opening on 17 February the following year, when it was heralded as "the first permanent Art Gallery in the Dominion."

In 1995 the building across the road, originally a telephone exchange, became a second gallery space for the institution, remodelled for the purpose by architects David Mitchell and Julie Stout, under the auspices of the Auckland Contemporary Art Trust. There is more development afoot, with a plan to refurbish and expand the original gallery between 2006 and 2009, while the New Gallery will continue to show both the permanent collection and visiting exhibitions.

The collections include such home-grown talent as New Zealand's most famous fine artist, Frances Hodgkin. Although she abandoned her country at an early age, the acquisitions trust of the gallery has guaranteed a fine collection of her work. The marvellous Colin McCahon made a personal bequest to the gallery in 1987, so he is also well represented.

A country of incomparable geographical diversity, shaken by volcanoes and lashed by the waves of a thousand beaches, New Zealand's artists have long focused on the spiritual power and symbolism of the natural environment - and man's uncertain relationship with it. The art they make can be beautiful, can be harrowing, and is always archetypal. In McCahon's twin obsessions of landscape and religion, these themes constantly intertwine. His oeuvre is a great introduction to the artistic mood of the country as a whole.

Both gallery buildings have their own cafés: the Art Gallery Café open seven days a week, and the New Gallery's Reuben from Monday to Saturday.