Overview
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The City’s first public art gallery opened in 1932 as the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. The Gallery’s building, in the Botanic Gardens, was presented to Christchurch City by the Managing Director of Aulsebrooks and Co., Mr. Robert E. McDougall and opened in 1932. It was founded with the Canterbury Society of Arts Collection for British and European paintings and the James Jamieson Collection which comprised 160 paintings and sculptures.
Through purchases, bequests and donations, the collection now totals over 5,000 items including paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, glass, metalwork and photography. The collection of works of art is central to an art museum’s function and as part of a wider national identity. The Christchurch Art Gallery is one of many New Zealand art museums operating in a national role in forming its collections. Today, the collection policy focuses in particular on the art of Canterbury within its New Zealand context.
Among the New Zealand and European artists represented are Rita Angus, Olivia Spencer Bower, Henriette Browne, Gerrit Dou, Charles Goldie, Frances Hodgkins, Lord Leighton, L.S. Lowry, Evelyn Page, Petrus van der Velden, Laurence Aberhart, Dick Frizzell, Ralph Hotere, Barry Cleavin, Colin McCahon, Carolyn Menzies, Alan Pearson, Seraphine Pick, Philip Trusttum, Michel Tuffery and Christine Webster.
During the twelve years 1988 to 2000, the Robert McDougall Art Gallery also operated the "Contemporary Art Annex" in the old Canterbury College library in the Arts Centre. The creation of the Gallery’s former Director, John Coley, the Annex was used specifically to present work by emerging contemporary artists, particularly those based in Canterbury. The Annex space is now operated by, and under the name of, University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts Gallery, SOFA.
The first milestone on the road towards the new Christchurch Art Gallery was the purchase in 1996 of a site. The Robert McDougall Art Gallery closed its doors as the City’s public Art Gallery on Sunday, 16 June 2002, and the new Christchurch Art Gallery opened in its place on Saturday, 10 May 2003.
