Kuia Moko presents a series of 34 oil painted portraits by artist Harry Sangl, depicting kuia featured in the publication Te Kuia Moko: The Last Tattooed Māori Women (also known as The Blue Privilege).

Harry Sangl (1922–2023) was a Prague-born artist who emigrated to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1969, where he established a practice grounded in portraiture and landscape painting. In the early 1970s, Sangl travelled extensively throughout the Eastern Bay of Plenty and across the North Island, seeking out kuia who wore moko kauae. Over several years, he developed a series of 34 oil portraits, created through direct sittings and sustained personal relationships with each woman and her whānau.

Centered on the kuia, the exhibition acknowledges their role in carrying and maintaining this practice, and the significance of moko kauae as an expression of identity and continuity.

Last exhibited in Whakatāne in the 1994, this presentation offers an opportunity to reconnect with these important portraits.