A celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Friends of Waikato Museum.

Art and Wonder is curated in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Friends of Waikato Museum.

This passionate group has provided decades-long friendship through gifts to the permanent collection, fund-raising, and offering a steady voice in advocating for the arts in Kirikiriroa Hamilton.

Artworks in this exhibition are part of the vast collection of objects, art, and taonga purchased by the Friends for the Museum, over their 50-year history.

From Pat Hanly’s utopian painting, Wonder, to a suite of Dr Campbell Smith’s wood engravings, to Peter Robinson’s assemblage Kargo kult koffer 3, the selected artworks tell the story of the Friends’ love of contemporary art, the emerging and the established, the local and the national, the political, the whimsical and the wonderful.

Image: Pat Hanly, Wonder, 1981, enamel and graphite on board. Collection of Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, purchased with assistance from the Friends of Waikato Museum. Accession number 1983/83/1.