Gallery's $370m treasures on move from secret base
Building housing rare art collections to be sold by cashstrapped council
TSuper City he Auckland Art Gallery’s world-renowned collections of New Zealand and international art, valued at $370 million, are on the move from a secret location in the city.
The building housing the vast collection of 17,000 artworks is being sold by the cash-strapped Auckland Council to fund new infrastructure.
The sale coincides with a programmed upgrade of the storage facilities which could be carried out in a new location, says council’s corporate property head Rod Aitken.
The Herald knows the location of the building, but has chosen not to divulge details for security reasons.
Art Gallery director Rhana Devenport said the move was not ideal and would be an enormous and complicated project.
“It will be in the millions to move and it will be in the millions to fit out,” she said.
She said the gallery held the most significant collection of New Zealand art in the world — “on a par with Te Papa but we have got the edge”.
As well as the largest and most important collections of artists like Colin McCahon and Gordon Walters, the gallery holds 12 significant collections on loan.
It has been promised 15 paintings from American philanthropists Julian and Josie Robertson, including masterpieces by Picasso, Matisse and Gauguin, valued at more than $115m.
Devenport said it was going to take a couple of years to find a new building and move the collections, which includes thousands of works on paper, sculpture and photographs. Many are valuable and require specialised storage conditions.
“It’s not an impossible situation, it will just require a lot of planning and funding. It is also about finding the right venue because there is nothing that exists.
“It’s always a major importance to museums that storage facilities are fit for purpose and have the capacity for expansion as well,” said Devenport.
The current building has 1400sq m of space over two floors that has been used to house the collections since about 2004. At any time, about 95 per cent of the collection is in storage and 5 per cent on show at the gallery.
Devenport said there was enough time to move the collection properly, saying the gallery was working closely with council and Regional Facilities Auckland on a fit for purpose and timely solution.
Aitken said the current storage facility was in the CBD where the gallery paid council CBD rent. The gallery and RFA could get a better deal outside the CBD, he said.
Aitken said the timing of the sale and the planned upgrade of the storage facility was perfect, saying RFA was working on what the next 12 to 15 years look like for art storage.
“This is an aligning of stars,” he said.