Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is proud to announce the opening of its newly renamed Te Kawau Gallery with the exhibition Ngā Taonga Tūturu: Treasured Māori Portraits on Wednesday 18 September. This exhibition features Gottfried Lindauer’s historic oil portraits of Māori tūpuna (ancestors) alongside whakairo (carvings) and a painting by Louis John Steele.

The renaming of the upper space in the Gallery’s historic building to Te Kawau Gallery honours Apihai Te Kawau (circa 1780–1869), a key ancestor of modern Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. The opening of Te Kawau Gallery will be marked by a karakia led by Gallery Poumatua Joe Pihema, a descendant of Apihai Te Kawau from Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei will also be involved in the ceremony, which is part of the event Tuku Whenua – Apihai’s Gift – The Birth of Auckland.

Pihema explains: “This annual celebration commemorates the allocation of 3000 acres of land from Apihai Te Kawau to Governor Hobson for the establishment of a township on 18 September 1840. It laid the foundation for what is now Auckland’s city centre and was offered as tuku whenua, a claim which gives access to land with expectations of reciprocity.” Tātaki Auckland Unlimited Gallery Director Kirsten Lacy says: “With the naming of this permanent gallery, we celebrate Apihai Te Kawau’s gift of land—the first gift in the Gallery’s history. We also acknowledge our relationship with Ngāti Whātua Orākei whose blessing has made this naming possible.

“It is made more significant that the Te Kawau Gallery provides a dedicated space for our much loved and visited Māori portraits. This gallery allows us to present these important pieces in a way that honours their historical and cultural significance.”

The exhibition is co-curated by Senior Curator, Māori Art, Nathan Pōhio and Curator, Historical New Zealand Art, Dr Jane Davidson-Ladd. Nathan Pōhio explains, “In bringing together oil on canvas portraits of tūpuna with taonga whakairo we can demonstrate how Māori cultural values remain consistent across these modes of art making, through ancestor residing next to ancestor”. The whakairo in this exhibition form part of the founding collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, presented by former Governor Sir George Grey in 1887.