TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre

2018/2/12
The Japan Foundation Travelling Exhibition “Handcrafted Form: Traditions and Techniques” is displayed at the TSB Wallace Arts Centre from 1 to 25 February, 2018. The Arts Centre is located at the Pah Homestead which was built between 1877 - 1879 and was the largest house in the Auckland province at the time. The Homestead remains largely as it was built, with almost all of its original door and window joinery, elaborate ceiling roses, parquet floors and marble fireplaces intact. At various times the building served as an orphanage, novitiate house, boarding school and, more recently, emergency housing. Auckland Council extensively restored and adapted the Homestead prior to its opening as the TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre in August 2010. Today the Pah Homestead is a vibrant and treasured keystone destination in the New Zealand arts community.

The Pah Homestead opened in August 2010 with a major exhibition from the Wallace Arts Trust Collection, covering the entire building and surrounding garden. Major highlights from the collection, now comprising over 8500 art works, were on display. The annual Wallace Art Awards followed in September of 2010. There have been up to 30 exhibitions annually, featuring artworks and artists from the collection as well as many touring exhibitions from New Zealand and overseas. Of note are the artists who have been represented in solo exhibitions. Sir James Wallace has collected works by these artists, in some cases many works acquired over several decades. For example: Toss Woollaston, Philip Trusttum, Mary McIntyre, Glenn Jowitt and Scott Eady.

The TSB Wallace Arts Centre has supported the Japan Foundation in hosting three exhibitions at the Pah Homestead:

The Dolls of Japan in 2013
Japanese Pottery - The Rising Generation from Traditional Japanese Kilns in 2016
Handcrafted Form: Traditions and Techniques in 2018.

The Arts Centre representative says they feel most honoured to have formed the relationship with the Japan Foundation and Consulate General of Japan in Auckland; to be able to represent Japanese culture in the gallery. All the exhibitions have been well curated with wonderful pieces on display and also very well received by visitors.

As a future goal the centre aims to support, promote and expose New Zealand contemporary artists while providing the wider public with an inimitable cultural and historical resource of contemporary New Zealand art. As well as running the Pah Homestead, the Trust loans out artworks to over 50 institutions ranging from schools to universities and hospitals. The Trust also runs the Wallace Arts Awards which are now the longest surviving and largest annual art awards of their kind in New Zealand.