Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Sir James Hector

The first predecessor to Te Papa was the Colonial Museum, founded in 1865, with Sir James Hector as founding director. The Museum was built on Museum Street, roughly in the location of the present day Defence House Office Building.[5]

The museum prioritised scientific collections but also acquired a range of other items, often by donation. These included prints and paintings, ethnographic curiosities, and items of antiquity.[6]

In 1907, the Colonial Museum was renamed the Dominion Museum and took on a broader focus. The idea of developing a public art gallery in Wellington was gathering support, and the Science and Art Act of 1913 paved the way for a national art gallery in the same building.

New Zealand Dominion Museum

In 1936, a new building to house the Dominion Museum and newly formed National Art Gallery of New Zealand opened in Buckle Street as a part of the newly built National War Memorial. It incorporated the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, which sold its land and donated the proceeds to the new organisation.

The National Art Gallery was opened in 1936 and occupied the first floor of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum building on Buckle Street, Wellington. It was originally populated with a collection donated by Academy of Fine Arts. The Gallery was formed with the passing of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum Act in 1930.

Both the Dominion Museum and Gallery were overseen by a single board of trustees. The official opening was by the Governor General in 1934.[7]

The early holding consisted largely of donations and bequests, including those from Harold Beauchamp, T. Lindsay Buick, Archdeacon Smythe, N. Chevalier, J. C. Richmond, William Swainson, Bishop Monrad, John Ilott and Rex Nan Kivell.[8]

Eru D. Gore was secretary-manager from 1936 till his death in 1948 when Stewart Maclennan was appointed the first director. This was the first appointment in New Zealand of a full-time art gallery director. Past directors of the gallery include:

• Stewart Maclennan (1948–68)
• Melvin Day (1968–78)
• Luit Bieringa (1979–89)
• Jenny Harper (1990–92)

Te Papa was established in 1992 by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Act 1992.[9] Part of the remit for Te Papa was to explore the national identity of New Zealand.[10]

The official opening took place on 14 February 1998, in a ceremony led by Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, Sir Peter Blake, and two children. The first chief executive of the Museum was Cheryll Sotheran. Māori traditional instrumentalist Richard Nunns co-led the musicians at a dawn ceremony on opening day.[11]

The museum is run by a board appointed by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. Board members have included: Wira Gardiner, Fiona Campbell, Sue Piper, Judith Tizard, John Judge, Miria Pomare, Michael Bassett, Christopher Parkin, Sandra Lee, Ngātata Love, Ron Trotter, Glenys Coughlan, Judith Binney, Philip Carter, and Wendy Lai.[12]

The museum had one million visitors in the first five months of operation, and between 1 and 1.3 million visits have been made in each subsequent year. In 2004, more space was devoted to exhibiting works from the New Zealand art collection in a long-term exhibition called Toi Te Papa: Art of the Nation.[13] Filmmakers Gaylene Preston and Anna Cottrell documented the development of Te Papa in their film Getting to Our Place.[14]

CEOs of Te Papa include:

• Cheryll Sotheran (1992–2002)
• Seddon Bennington (2003 – July 2009)
• Michael Houlihan (Aug 2010 – May 2014)[15]
• Rick Ellis (Nov 2014 – May 2017)[16][17]
• Geraint Martin (May 2017 – 2019)[18][17]
• Courtney Johnston (2019–present)[19]

The museum has sometimes been the centre of controversy. The siting of significant collections at the water's edge on reclaimed land next to one of the world's most active faults has resulted in concern by some people. There has been criticism of the 'sideshow' nature of some exhibits, primarily the Time Warp section, which has closed. There has also been criticism that some exhibits were not given due reverence. For example, a major work by Colin McCahon was at one stage juxtaposed with a 1950s refrigerator in a New Zealand culture exhibition.[20]

New Zealand art commentator Hamish Keith has been a consistent critic of Te Papa at different times referring to it as a "theme park", the "cultural equivalent to a fast-food outlet" and "not even a de facto national gallery",[21] but seemed to moderate his opinion later when making a case for exhibition space on the Auckland waterfront.[22]

Staff restructuring at Te Papa since 2012 has generated significant controversy.[23][24][25] In October 2018, Te Papa management promised to review restructuring plans, indicating that plans would be scaled back.[26] In February 2019, the Collection Manager of Fishes Andrew Stewart and the Collection Manager of Molluscs Bruce Marshall were made redundant.[27][28][29] Numerous museum experts and scientists in New Zealand and worldwide criticised the move, with researchers including Steve O'Shea advocating a boycott.[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] In March 2019, the redundancies were delayed.[39] In April 2019, the Museum reversed the decision for Andrew Stewart, offering him an alternative job.[40][41][42] Between April and May 2019, Te Papa advertised a research position for a molluscan curator and awarded the job to an alternative candidate to Bruce Marshall.[39][43][44] The advertisement and decision to not offer the job to Bruce Marshall was criticised harshly by outside experts,[39][43] prompting moa expert Trevor Worthy to end his 30-year research association with the museum in protest.[45]

British artist Tania Kovats’ exhibition, Pictura Britannica, depicting the Virgin Mary in a condom, infuriated many in the Christian, Muslim and Jewish community and sparked protests and counter protests a month after Te Papa opened its doors in 1998.[59] A nationwide petition was circulated calling for the work’s removal. Protesters congregated on the forecourt outside, increasing in number after The Christian Action group took out a full-page advertisement in The Dominion newspaper inviting people to join their protest. They threatened to take Te Papa to court on the grounds of ‘blasphemous libel’, a 1961 Crimes Act offence against ‘religion, morality and public welfare’. Te Papa staff also became the target of abusive and threatening phone calls and letters. The exhibit was guarded after being physically attacked, and following that, a guard working at the site was assaulted.

Te Papa responded by refusing to remove the offending artwork. The museum welcomed protestors back, stating that the museum’s aim was not to offend, but to stimulate debate as a forum. However, they stipulated that debate would not concern the removal of the artwork, but only its meanings and interpretation, claiming that, ‘the people of New Zealand would want the museum to take a strong position on this, not to succumb to intimidation as some other museums have’. The move sought to align Te Papa with other art museums that have taken the side of artistic freedom in spite of well publicised protest (the statuette was banned in Adelaide, stolen in Sydney, and dropped from its British tour).Though ostensibly positioning itself as neutral space for debate, Te Papa’s stand was nonetheless political. It communicated the institution’s liberal credentials that associate secularism with institutional progressiveness.

The leader of the Christian Heritage Party claimed that the sacrilegious display of the statuette was hypocritical, given that the museum is careful not to offend sensitivities about Maori spirituality.

Advice for pregnant and menstruating women to avoid a behind-the-scenes tour of some of Te Papa's collections in 2010 had some questioning if this was appropriate inclusiveness for a national museum. A Te Papa spokeswoman at the time said the policy was in place because of Māori beliefs surrounding the taonga collection included in the tour "for their own safety".[60] This generated outrage, with claims that Te Papa was overbearing in terms of political correctness.

Taranaki tribal elders raised objections to a 19th century Te Papa-owned painting that the museum planned to lend to the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth in 2019. Te Papa said it hoped the piece, View of Mt Egmont, Taranaki, New Zealand, taken from New Plymouth, with Maoris driving off settlers' cattle, would spark a conversation about historical perspectives.

In 2019, the museum faced criticism from farmers, and National Party MP Todd Muller over a container of brown dyed water which was part of a display in the museum's Te Taiao Nature exhibition. This water was labelled as "water from a typical farm stream" with an image of a cow defecating in a waterway, and was classed as undrinkable.[61] Te Papa spokeswoman Kate Camp also told Stuff that the bottles had been created for display purposes only and were not samples. Camp stated:

• "This display is about telling the story of New Zealand waterways. It's based on robust research that shows that many waterways in New Zealand – in urban and rural areas – aren't fit to drink or to swim in."

In 2020, several children were exposed to mature content without sufficient warning messages. Te Papa head of art Charlotte Davy said the museum would this be making warning signs more obvious and installing new ones.