Left Bank Art Gallery

The Left Bank Art Gallery is a public art gallery in Greymouth, New Zealand. Operated by the West Coast Society of Arts Inc, it opened in 1992 in a 1927 Bank of New Zealand building on the left bank of the Grey River. The only staffed public gallery on the West Coast, it exhibits artists from Karamea to Haast, and holds the National Pounamu Collection which was assembled from a biennial carving competition.

There had been an Arts Society in Greymouth since the 1940s; its early members included George Chippendale, Arthur Foster, David Graham, Allan Holcroft, and St Clair Sofield; they were joined by Toss Wollaston in 1949. Art exhibitions were held in private rooms, hostels, the Copper Room of the Union Hotel, or on one occasion in an alleyway behind King's Hotel. Even in the 1980s there was no permanent art gallery; as Greymouth artist Rod Leonard recalled, "We hit a wall of opposition. People said we didn't need one."

In 1981 Greymouth mayor Dr Barry Dallas called a meeting to establish a public gallery on the West Coast. Acting chair of the Westland Community Arts Council Roger Ewer worked with Dallas to create an exhibition space on the vacant first floor of the Greymouth Borough Council Chambers, on the corner of Puketahi and Tainui streets in central Greymouth. The first exhibition in February 1982, opened by Toss Wollaston, was a "vast display" of West Coast painting and photography. The West Coast Society of Arts Inc. (WCSA) was formed to run the gallery, using volunteers and government-funded Project Employment Programme workers. The gallery held major biennial exhibitions of jade carving in 1984 and 1986, sponsored by Air New Zealand. A donation of $15,000 from BP NZ Ltd allowed it to purchase three works by Olivia Spencer-Bower, the nucleus of its permanent collection. In April 1987 the space in the Borough Council Chambers was taken over by the newly-formed Timberlands, and the Arts Society was homeless.

The WCSA staged exhibitions in the Trowbridge Room, and ran the 1988 jade exhibition in the Ashley Motor Inn. In September 1989 a new exhibition space with an "uninspiring exterior" was created at 29 Lord Street in Greymouth's industrial area. The former National Library service centre was christened Shed 2. Shed 2 exhibitions included a retrospective of Dusty Rhodes' work and Yvonne Rust's paintings. A public meeting attended by 130 created pressure on the Council to establish a permanent gallery.

In 1988 the Bank of New Zealand vacated its 1927 brick and concrete corner building at 1 Tainui Street. It was purchased by local architect Gary Hopkinson in 1990, repainted, and refurbished. The Grey District Council purchased it for $100,000, including $55,000 from the Lottery Grants Board, and leased it to the West Coast Society of Arts Inc. The WCSA then refurbished the building and added an entrance ramp. The interior consisted of three exhibition spaces with a 6 metre ceiling, and the upstairs (once the assistant bank manager's flat) was later converted into environmentally-controlled storage. A green and yellow colour scheme chosen by WCSA chair Sue Syme was applied in 1998, and was replaced by burgundy, fawn, and pearl in 2006, and white after the gallery's earthquake strengthening.

The Left Bank Art Gallery was officially opened by Greymouth mayor Ron Hibbs in its new premises on Saturday 23 May 1992, although the gallery had been open to the public since 20 March, and opened its first show – a collection of Anne Donovan watercolours – on 28 March. The opening had been brought forward in the hope Barry Dallas, the mayor who had supported the WCSA and arranged the purchase of the building, could attend, but he had died a month earlier on 21 April. To mark the opening two large pounamu boulders were installed, one inanga from the Arahura River and one kawakawa from Kaniere: four North Island carvers had worked on one, five South Islanders on the other. They had been purchased by the 1990 Commission and blessed by the Governor General Sir Paul Reeves, and were joined by a flax rope made by Auckland weaver Dante Bonica.

In April 2017 the Left Bank building was assessed at just 15–25% of the seismic strength required under the National Building Standard (the minimum threshold for public buildings was 34%). The gallery closed in April 2018 while the $300,000 strengthening was carried out and disabled access was built at the rear, and reopened in February 2019.

The first official exhibition was a selection of West Coast works by Allan Holcroft, mounted by his son Graham, and a smaller exhibition of works by Evelyn Hewlett in a side gallery. In October 1992 the Left Bank exhibited a collection of painted and sculpted nudes, something that "wouldn't have been tolerated on the West Coast 20 years ago". In July 1993 it staged a 30-year retrospective of prints by Pat Hanly. In February 1994 it exhibited a joint show of Catherine Brough's West Coast landscapes and Sue Syme's satirical watercolours. A July 1998 show included local artists Syme, Peter Tennant, Greg Smith, Helen Davidson, and Jim Tennant. With the return of Yvonne Rust to the West Coast in 1998, the gallery staged Coasters In Clay, a retrospective of local potters that featured Chris Weaver and Andrew Nolan. In 2005 the gallery exhibited large-scale canvases by Philip Trusttum. By 2017 the gallery was running an annual Creative Click exhibition for West Coast photographers. The 2018 show From the Earth surveyed the pottery of the West Coast craft movement started by Yvonne Rust in the 1970s, including work by Rust, Hardy Browning, Chris Weaver, and Bob McQuarrie.