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
Dutch-born New Zealand photographer Ans Westra is known for her black-and-white documentary photography of the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, including protests and marches, Māori communities, street photography, and industrial scenes.
Trained in London as a high society photographer, Spencer Digby first opened the portrait studio in Wellington in 1931. From his overseas experience, he brought stylish lighting and opulent settings to his studio, attracting our own notables. Prime ministers, governors-general, and public personalities such as broadcasters, writers, musicians, and actors all made appointments to pose before Digby’s lens.
Leslie Adkin was a farmer and noted amateur geologist and ethnologist. Photography was also a passion of his, and he documented every aspect of his life, from his family to his scientific interests, from the 1910s until the 1950s. Explore some of the Leslie Adkin collection.
Friedlander was particularly renowned for her portraits of artists in the 1960s and 1970s, and for her images of the last Māori women to have received the chin moko in a customary manner.
New Zealand artist and photographer Eric Lee-Johnson used light in interesting ways in his photography. Here is a selection of images he created in the 1950s.
