Free museum entry for New Zealanders and people living in New Zealand
Open every day 10am-6pm
(except Christmas Day)
Free museum entry for New Zealanders and people living in New Zealand
Dame Robin White (Ngāti Awa, Pākehā) is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most loved living contemporary artists. For over fifty years, Robin White has portrayed people and their environments in Aotearoa New Zealand, Kiribati, Fiji, Tonga, and beyond.
More than 50 works from across Dame Robin White’s 50-year career will form what the artist describes as a ‘family reunion’, bringing together works from 22 galleries and living rooms across the country.
TOURING
2025–2027
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
More than 50 works from across Dame Robin White’s 50-year career will form what the artist describes as a ‘family reunion’, bringing together works from 22 galleries and living rooms across the country.
Closed
4 Jun – 18 Sep 2022
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Major survey of the 50-year career of one of New Zealand’s best-loved artists, Robin White.
Robin White: Something is happening Here is the first book to be devoted to Robin White’s art in 40 years. Here, the authors reflect on working with Robin for the book and accompanying exhibition.
Working in close collaboration with the women at the Te Itoiningaina Catholic Women’s Training Centre. Robin White produced this series of mats made with leaves of the pandanus, when she was living in Kiribati.
Explore artworks spanning White’s career – from early paintings to recent collaborative tapa (bark cloth) portraying people and their environments in Aotearoa New Zealand, Kiribati, Fiji, Tonga, and beyond.
In 2019, Dame Robin White invited a small team from Te Papa to visit her on location in Lautoka Fiji as she completed That Vase, a masi (Fijian tapa) made with her collaborator Tamari Cabeikanacea.
In this work, hieroglyphs, wave upon wave of repeating patterns on tapa, and lines from a poem by Pablo Neruda form her response to the island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), which she visited in 2011 in support of a proposed ocean sanctuary.
