An exhibition of paintings of Maori tupuna (ancestors) by Gottfried Lindauer.

Gottfried Lindauer was born at Pilsen in Bohemia, then in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and now part of the Czech Republic. He studied art for seven years from the age of 16.

Lindauer came to New Zealand in 1873 and began to paint portraits of notable Māori people whenever he could. His reputation grew quickly.

It was through the work Ana Rupene and Child that Lindauer became well known and lauded. This painting was exhibited at the World Fair in St Louis in the United States in 1904 and was awarded a gold medal.

Sir Walter Buller, a prominent lawyer and naturalist and one-time politician, commissioned Lindauer to paint 20 portraits for exhibition in London in 1886. At the conclusion of the exhibition, Buller returned most of them to New Zealand as national treasures. Subsequently, 12 were bequeathed to the Whanganui Regional Museum, and form one of the leading Lindauer collections in the world.