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Auckland City Gallery Toi o Tamaki has come up with 36 previously unknown paintings by Gottried Lindauer as it works towards a major survey.
Maori curator Nigel Borell says a call for the public to look in living rooms, attics meeting houses brought in a lot of reproductions as well as the genuine items.
He says guest curator Ngahiraka Mason has added half dozen of them to the show, which will feature about 150 historic oil portraits of Maori and Pakeha.
He says the show should answer some questions as to why the Bohemian-born artist was such a well regarded painter of Maori portraits and themes.
"He was a disarming man and he had a way of approaching his Maori contemporaries in a way that made them feel at ease. He understood intimately how to navigate that landscape with people. It tells us some measure of the man in his the ability to read those relationships as much as his talent as a painter," Mr Borrell says.
Maori Portraits: Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand opens October 22,
Gottfried Lindauer, Pare Watene 1878, Auckland Art Gallery, Gift of Mr H E Partridge 1915
Gottfried Lindauer, Eruera Maihi Patuone 1874, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Mr H E Partridge, 1915
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