Aigantighe Art Gallery

11/06/2026

Check out this wodnerful article from the Timaru Courier discussing the Aigantighe's Architecture Award!

The refurbishment of a heritage building in Timaru has been selected as one the ‘‘very best’’ in the region at this year’s Canterbury Architecture Awards. The Aigantighe Art Gallery, refurbished by Irving Smith Architects in association Ian Bowman, was one of 28 architectural projects acro...

10/06/2026

It is an honour to share that the Aigantighe House Gallery Refurbishment has received an NZIA Canterbury Architecture Award in the Heritage category.

Receiving this recognition in our 70th year as an art gallery makes it especially meaningful. We thank Andrew Irving and Jeremy Smith of Irving Smith Architects, together with Ian Bowman, for their thoughtful approach and dedication to restoring this much-loved community building.

We are also grateful for the support of our community throughout this project. Together we are preserving Aigantighe House and its collection for future generations as the Home of Art in South Canterbury.

"The refurbishment of Timaru’s Aigantighe House Gallery is a careful and disciplined restoration of a much-loved heritage building... restoring both the function of the building and pride in the place."

06/06/2026

Rosemary Campbell, Mackenzie Excitation, 1989 on display in Undulations of Memory (Aigantighe Art Gallery Acc. No. 1989.16).
Local artist Rosemary Campbell’s retrospective exhibition, Undulations of Memory, is currently on display at the Aigantighe Art Gallery. This exhibition of paintings and prints provides a compelling model of sustained, place-based artistic inquiry throughout six decades of professional practice.

Undulations of Memory includes artworks by Campbell that are part of the Aigantighe Art Gallery permanent collection – one of which is Mackenzie Excitation, 1989. While Campbell’s artworks are inextricably tied to the landscape of South Canterbury, some are abstract – occupying a liminal space between the visible and the intuited. This watercolour and pastel artwork is an example of one the artist’s abstract paintings and captures Campbell’s own feelings about the MacKenzie Basin.

With music being a large part of Campbell’s life and a continuous stimulus for her artwork, it is not surprising that her paintings can be read as a visual depiction of music, when, like music, her paintings are an expression of emotion.

As a skilled master, Campbell constructs an arrangement of shapes, colours, lines and variation of tone, to present a state of feeling in a moment of time. There is a sense of being drawn in to her layered washes of purple, which are divided by an injection of blue watercolour. The paint seems to seep and spread from the top of the paper down, and from the bottom of the paper up, so that our eye rests in the middle, where we are irresistibly drawn to the focal point of the painting – a crystal-like shape defined by injections of brightly coloured lines.

Undulations of Memory is on display at the Aigantighe Art Gallery until 19 July 2026, and this exhibition is accompanied by the launch of a book published by the Aigantighe Art Gallery about Rosemary Campbell’s life and work.

05/06/2026

Last night we were honoured to receive a Canterbury Architecture Award in the Heritage category for the Aigantighe House Gallery Refurbishment.

This recognition celebrates the careful restoration of one of South Canterbury's most loved heritage buildings and acknowledges the commitment to preserving its character while ensuring it remains accessible and relevant for future generations.

Our sincere thanks go to Irving Smith Architects for their thoughtful and sensitive design approach, as well as the many consultants, contractors, project teams, council staff, heritage specialists, supporters, and advocates who contributed to the success of this project.

We would also like to acknowledge the Timaru Civic Trust and the Friends of the Aigantighe Art Gallery for their ongoing support and commitment to the preservation of this important community asset.

As we celebrate the gallery's 70th year, this award is a wonderful reminder of what can be achieved when a community comes together to care for a place it values.

The Aigantighe was gifted to the people of South Canterbury in 1956 to be an art gallery. Seventy years later, it continues to inspire, connect, and welcome visitors from near and far.

Thank you to everyone who has played a part in this journey. This award belongs to our whole community

01/06/2026

It was wonderful to host this incredible duo here in Timaru earlier this year!

29/05/2026

Aigantighe Art Gallery will be open this long weekend! We are open Saturday, Sunday, and Monday 12pm - 4pm.

Come and experience Rosemary Campbell's vibrant artworks through this retrospective exhibition covering her stylistic practice over the years. On display until July 19th.

26/05/2026

We are saddened to acknowledge the passing of artist Zita Waldron, a valued member of the Aigantighe Art Gallery community and a wonderful contributor to the arts in South Canterbury.

Born in Dannevirke in 1933, Zita came from a farming background and brought a deep sensitivity and vitality to her work as both a painter and sculptor. She studied at Wellington Dental School in 1951–52, before later pursuing her artistic practice with dedication and enthusiasm.

A visit to the Aigantighe Art Gallery and seeing the work of Rosemary Campbell inspired Zita to further pursue painting. She later went on to study under Campbell in 1978 alongside Paul van den Bergh, continuing to develop a distinctive and energetic artistic practice of her own.

Zita exhibited prolifically throughout her life and worked across bronze, clay, watercolour, acrylic, and oil painting. Her work reflected a strong interest in spontaneity, composition, and the visual strength of an image. She enjoyed still life and landscape equally and often referred to Matisse and Van Gogh when she “needed a hand”.

She also brought a remarkable vitality and spice for life to everything she did. Motivated, determined and endlessly creative, Zita continued exhibiting into her nineties, with her most recent exhibition held just last year at the age of 93.

Aigantighe Art Gallery is fortunate to hold several of Zita’s works in the collection, alongside works held in collections including Timaru Hospital and Dunedin Public Hospital. The still life depicted here is just one example of her work held by the Gallery.

The painting features a First World War shell case — a treasured family object that served as a vase. Zita once recalled the challenge of painting the richly coloured cloth within the composition and how pleased she was when the Gallery acquired the work.

Zita will be remembered warmly for her generosity, creativity, and lifelong commitment to making art. Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and all who knew and admired her work.

26/05/2026

Relive the wonderful opening of 𝘙𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘊𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘭: 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘺 with this exquisite video by Rickwood Creative.

Experience Rosemary’s dynamic use of colour and movement in a retrospective exhibition exploring memory throughout her work.

On display at Aigantighe Art Gallery until 19 July 2026.

Kā mihi to everyone that joined us in celebrating the launch, of Rosemary Campbell Undulations of Memory, here are some highlights from the evening. (April 2...

23/05/2026

Malcolm Warr, Landscape, 1966 (Aigantighe Art Gallery Acc. No. 2025.17.1) on display in the New Vision Gallery at the Aigantighe Art Gallery.

Exhibited in the recently reopened Aigantighe House, the New Vision Gallery exhibition shows artworks that are in the Gallery’s permanent collection and celebrates the support given to New Zealand artists by the early dealer gallery in Auckland, the New Vision Gallery. One of the artists who was represented by New Vision Gallery was the New Zealand printmaker and painter Malcolm Warr (1939-) – his early monoprint, Landscape, 1966, is on display in this exhibition.

Malcolm Warr was raised in Wellington and then trained at Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland during a period of experimentation and expansion in New Zealand art education. While he works across a variety of mediums – including, acrylic, oil, and watercolour – it was in printmaking that he found his most distinctive voice.
From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, Warr produced a prolific body of prints exploring Aotearoa’s landscapes, balancing abstraction and representation with careful attention to line, colour, and composition.

Landscape, 1966, sits outside of the artworks Warr is predominantly known for. This monoprint of simplified flora within the landscape showcases his early focus on form and rhythm. Warr’s practice reveals how observation, memory, and imagination combine in quiet, deliberate exploration.

New Vision Gallery is on display at the Aigantighe Art Gallery until 9 August 2026.

15/05/2026

Rosemary Campbell, Adagio, 2018, on display in the Rosemary Campbell retrospective exhibition at the Aigantighe Art Gallery, Undulations of Memory.
Currently on display at the Aigantighe Art Gallery is a retrospective exhibition by the South Canterbury artist, Rosemary Campbell, called Undulations of Memory.
In 2013, after living in Christchurch, Woodbury, and travelling abroad, Rosemary Campbell returned to live at Lake Tekapo, where she now resides. In this move she returned to the place where she had spent much of her childhood – to her beloved Mackenzie Basin.
With a studio in her home, Campbell continued to paint, and these later series are also included in the retrospective exhibition at the Aigantighe. The Alpine Series stands as a late career refinement: paintings of quiet force, composed with clarity and held in deep tonal balance. Additionally, the Moving Mackenzie artworks capture land, sky, and weather as dynamic forces in continual exchange.
One of Campbell’s recent paintings is Adagio, 2018, pictured above. The word adagio is an Italian musical term that means ‘at ease’ or ‘slowly’. In this painting Campbell presents us with the dramatic and majestic ranges of the MacKenzie Basin, and as described in the painting’s title, our eye gently moves in an undulating motion over the peaks Campbell has depicted – taking in their shapes, details and colours – in a slow, rhythmic and graceful movement.
Undulations of Memory is on display at the Aigantighe Art Gallery until 19 July 2026.