Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand, and has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand. It frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions.
Set below the hilltop Albert Park in the central-city area of Auckland, the gallery was established in 1888 as the first permanent art gallery in New Zealand.
The building originally housed the Auckland Art Gallery as well as the Auckland public library opening with collections donated by benefactors Governor Sir George Grey and James Tannock Mackelvie. This was the second public art gallery in New Zealand opened three years after the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 1884. Wellington’s New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts opened in 1892 and a Wellington Public Library in 1893. Christchurch’s Robert McDougall Art Gallery opened in 1932, and was superseded by a spectacular Christchurch Art Gallery in 2003.
Many other cities and towns built public libraries and a few boasted public art galleries, including Nelson’s Suter Art Gallery Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery (1919) and New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (1970).