The Chartwell Collection

Collective and Cultural Centre

AVAM

The Chartwell Collection is a collection of contemporary art from New Zealand and Australia that has been held on long term loan at the Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tamaki, Auckland, New Zealand, since 1997.

Since the Chartwell Trust was founded in Hamilton, New Zealand, in the early 1970s and was established as an independent charitable trust, the Chartwell Collection itself began in 1974. Since then it has grown from early New Zealand acquisitions in the 1970s, through the first acquisitions of Australian works in the 1980s, to the establishment of a collection of more than 1500 works in 2016. The commitment to the exploration of creativity through the medium of contemporary art has also continued to develop in depth along with the determination to enable access to the Collection and to contemporary art on a wider basis.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, a relationship with the Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton, meant that Chartwell Collection works were always held on loan in a public art institution and were included in many exhibitions there.

Now held on long term loan at the Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand, the Collection is seen through a programme of exhibitions, from major Chartwell exhibitions to its use by curators at the Auckland Art Gallery as part of their collection exhibition programmes