Housed in the former Bank of New Zealand, an historic building built in 1924, the main gallery displays regular exhibits of contemporary New Zealand paintings, prints, photography, sculpture and crafts, with an emphasis on local content.

An expanding national collection of Greenstone/Pounamu is a major feature of this gallery, with works from throughout New Zealand, including two large boulders that toured New Zealand to be worked on by nine leading carvers as a New Zealand project. The Pounamu Collection showcases the country’s finest jade works, some selected from the Contemporary Stone Awards.

The Left Bank is kaitiaki of the 1990 lithograph collection and works by Yvonne Rust, Olivia Spencer Bower, Sir Toss Woollaston, and Stanley Palmer.