Human History

The focus of the Applied Arts & Design collection represents key makers, manufacturers, designs, designers and technical developments and styles primarily of Auckland, the Auckland region New Zealand as well as Western and Eastern cultures. The collection is used extensively as a research base by scholars and students. Our current priority is to strengthen our holding of key 21st-and mid-to-late-20th Century designers and makers. The Applied Arts and Design department receives acquisition funds from the Charles Disney Art Trust, and has a number of loan collections including the Mackelvie Trust Collection. 

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Within New Zealand, the Taonga Māori collection is of equal significance to that of the Te Papa Tongarewa. It is a cultural and research resource of the first order having the most comprehensive range of types and periods of material and is essential for the whole spectrum of studies in Māori art and material culture. 

This segment has a very high level of use by scholars, students, artists and Māori visitors, and dates from the early decades of the founding of the Museum. The focus to date has been on acquiring first quality “masterworks” from all tribal and geographic areas of New Zealand as well as representative material culture items.

Current priorities include the continued collections of aspects of contemporary Māori art, specifically those fields that derive from, relate to, resonate with, or bear reference to the traditional arts and existing collection strengths. 

This will be complemented by a proactive programme of Māori social history collecting that seeks to show Māori participation in New Zealand life throughout the 19th century and up to the present day.

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The Social History collection was established in 1992, by the amalgamation of the War collections (established 1920) and the Colonial History collection (established 1965), together with the Numismatic, Maritime History and Philately collections. The collection has two main strands, New Zealand at War, and Auckland – New Zealand social history. 

Both strands have considerable exhibition and display potential, and as their historical context and documentation is improved, their significance as a research and reference collection has also increased. While the focus of collecting is on Auckland, this does not exclude collections that relate to a wider geographical area, that explores connections between Auckland and its hinterland, and New Zealand and the wider world. 

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The World (Foreign Ethnology) collection is diverse, the largest and most significant of its type in the country. The continued development of this collection enables the presentation and representation of a well-balanced range of arts and artefacts of non-Western, and non-Pacific and Māori cultures, and it is an important collection for display and comparative research. With increasing numbers of migrant groups to New Zealand – and specifically to Auckland – it is important that Auckland Museum is able to reflect the changing cultural landscape and the creativity in the spaces between these new communities.

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