The Wairau Māori Art Gallery is the first public art gallery in New Zealand to focus solely on the promotion and understanding of Māori artists and curators. The gallery is physically part of the Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangārei, occupying the building's lower floor.

The Hundertwasser Art Centre is based on the conception of artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who always intended the building of his design in Whāngarei to have a Māori presence. When after Hundertwasser's death the Whangārei District Council approached the trust managing the artist's estate to seek permission to develop his vision for an art centre, the trust asserted that the building should include a space for a contemporary Māori art gallery. The name of the gallery, "Wairau", translates as "one hundred waters" and references Hundertwasser's own (adopted) name.

The Wairau Māori Art Gallery opened on Sunday 20 February 2022. It is advised by the Wairau Māori Art Gallery Charitable Trust Board, chaired by Elizabeth Ellis.

The gallery's inaugural ringa hautū toi (director) is Larissa McMillan (Ngāpuhi), appointed in 2022. Her priorities as director include increasing national and international audiences for Māori art. The gallery presents three exhibition seasons per year, curated by a senior curator paired with an emerging curator.