City Art Depot on Disraeli Street in Christchurch is a conservation picture framing workshop and contemporary art gallery under one roof. The team is committed to the highest standards of art care and presentation, and that shows in the breadth of services offered: bespoke hand-finished frames made on site to conservation standards, hand-gilt frames and framing repairs, artists' stretchers, and archival Solander boxes that protect works of art, books and precious objects.
Beyond the workshop bench, City Art Depot brings 25 years' experience to installing single works or whole collections in homes, offices and institutions, and builds custom-made crates and packaging for the local and international transportation of artworks. Storage rounds out a full-service approach to caring for art through every stage of its life.
Alongside all this runs a contemporary art gallery with a year-round exhibition programme across its main space and the Up Stairs gallery. Works by gallery artists are available for sale, a deep exhibition archive is kept online, and the City Art Reader publishes artist interviews and stories. Visitors are welcome Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 5pm and Saturday from 10am to 2pm, with off-street parking on site.
On Disraeli Street in Christchurch, City Art Depot holds a distinctive double role: it is at once a conservation picture framing workshop and a contemporary art gallery. The team states its commitment plainly — to the highest standards of art care and presentation — and that ethos carries through everything the business does, whether it is framing a single photograph, hanging an entire corporate collection, or opening a new exhibition upstairs.
Framing sits at the heart of the workshop. City Art Depot's hand-finished frames bring high quality craftsmanship and conservation standards to artworks of every kind, and because the work happens in-house, frames are made on site rather than sent away. That matters for anything precious — works on paper, originals, keepsakes — where the materials touching the art are as important as the frame around it.
The framing repertoire extends to hand-gilt frames, a specialist finish well suited to classical and traditional works, and to framing repairs that give older or damaged frames a second life. Working artists are looked after too: the workshop builds artists' stretchers, the internal frames over which canvas is stretched, made to order for painters preparing new bodies of work.
Framing is only one part of the Depot's art-care services. The team brings 25 years' experience to installing works of art — whole collections or single pieces — in homes, offices and institutions. When art needs to travel, City Art Depot constructs bespoke crates and packaging for local and international transportation, protecting fragile objects in transit. For works that are resting rather than moving, storage is available, and for long-term protection the workshop makes Solander boxes: elegant, robust archival containers for works of art, books and other valued objects.
Alongside the workshop runs a contemporary art gallery with a year-round programme. Exhibitions rotate through the main space and the Up Stairs gallery, drawing on artists based in Ōtautahi Christchurch and beyond. The current season pairs Saskia Bunce-Rath's "now that I'm listening, it's deafening" — a significant new body of work exploring her visions and experiences of nature, glimpsed through the modern landscape — with "SWAMP SONGS" by Nicholas Burry and Eleanor Diaz Ritson showing in the Up Stairs gallery.
The programme reaches back over more than a decade, and a full exhibition archive is kept online for browsing. Works by gallery artists are available for sale, so a visit can end with a piece going home with you — framed on site, naturally. The City Art Reader adds artist interviews and stories for those who want to look closer.
City Art Depot is open Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 5pm and Saturday from 10am to 2pm, closed Sundays. Off-street parking makes dropping off a frame or picking up a purchase straightforward. You can reach the team on 03 365 3811 or at [email protected], and a mailing list offers gallery updates, invitations and news.
Whether you arrive with a family piece needing a conservation frame, a canvas bound for an overseas buyer, or simple curiosity about what's on the walls this month, the combination is the same: a working workshop and a living gallery, sharing one address and one standard of care.