Aotearoa New Zealand's most eminent photographer, Laurence Aberhart captures landscapes, monuments, wharenui, museum collections and cemeteries, entrenching them in this country’s photographic art history.

Recording the built environment since 1975, Aberhart’s meticulous documentary photographs convey his conservationist approach to architecture. Each black-and-white image—inscribed with the subject and date—is taken using a vintage 8x10” view camera and contact-printed, using laborious, detailed printing techniques.

Aberhart's moody, expressive and exquisite images are described by artist and writer Gregory O'Brien as being “bathed in the light of photographic history and the world around, reclaim[ing] a magic often lost in the digital age”.

In 1992, Laurence Aberhart was commissioned by City Gallery Wellington to make these photographs, documenting buildings of architectural significance in Wellington’s central business district for the Civic Centre development.

Laurence Aberhart (born 1949, Nelson) had his first solo exhibition at Wellington’s McLeavey Gallery in 1978. He has since exhibited regularly throughout New Zealand and Australia, the US and Europe, with many publications produced of his work. Aberhart has won numerous awards and commissions including Creative New Zealand awards, a 1988 Fulbright Travel Grant and a 2010 Fulbright Research Fellowship, and a 1994 Moet et Chandon Fellowship, France. He was made an Arts Foundation Laureate in 2013. Aberhart lives and works in Russell, Northland.