Pictorial Collections

The photographs in this collection encompass a huge range of subjects - images of industrial growth, working life, design and architecture, advertising and fashion - which provide a remarkable insight into expansionist post-war decades. The museum holds approximately 50,000 negatives spanning a twenty-year period from 1946-1966.

Frequently iconic, the images of Robin Morrison have been widely published and exhibited. Idiosyncratic people and places captured during his travels around the country show his skill in revealing the extraordinary in everyday things. Robin Morrison and his family donated his collection of approximately 100,000 slides and negatives to Auckland Museum in 1993, shortly before his death at the age of 48.

Highlights from the paintings and drawings collection include several watercolours by von Tempsky, Charles Heaphy sketchbooks, Maori portraits by Goldie, Lindauer and Merrett, and views of the Auckland area painted by European artists and observers.

The views of Bruno Hamel are amongst the earliest photographs of the Auckland province, early scenes of Auckland streets can be seen in the Beattie Album, and the Auckland landscape can be found in the views of John Kinder. Two albums by Daniel Louis Mundy contain scenery from all over New Zealand, including the spectacular views of Rotomahana. Snapshots collected by World War I soldiers in Gallipoli and Egypt are found in a number of war albums, and reveal the personal and human side of the war effort.

Collections from the New Zealand Herald, Auckland Star, Bond marine photographs, and a number of individuals, make up much of the glass plate and negative collections. Henry Winkelmann, Josiah Martin, Arthur Breckon and Margaret Matilda White are just a selection of the photographers whose work is available on the database.

The work of Una Garlick and Gerald E. Jones shows the influence of international trends in photography. These photographers were working with the medium as an art form, rather than for documentary purposes. George Bourne combined the two through his humorous photo-montages, and Thomas Andrew's Samoan photographs show a romanticised version of reality.