This is New Zealand’s premier art gallery, home to one of the most important collections of European Old Masters in the South Pacific. Not long ago it completed a NZ$113 million extension. The design, by Australia’s Richard Francis-Jones with Auckland architects Archimedia has made it one of the most exciting contemporary buildings in the city. The gallery holds over 14,000 works dating from the 14th century to present-day, including a superb collection of pieces by expatriate New Zealander Frances Hodgkins (1869–1947); early works by colonial artist Petrus Van der Velden (1837-1913); and a remarkable collection of 20th-century works by New Zealand’s greatest modernist painter, Colin McCahon (1919–1987).