The Suter is Nelson's main public art gallery, named after Andrew Burn Suter, the second Anglican Bishop of Nelson, who left his personal collection of New Zealand and British paintings to the town in 1895. The collection has grown a great deal since, with a particular strength in early colonial watercolours of the region.
The current building, opened in 2016, is a deliberately modest pavilion at the edge of Queens Gardens — wide windows on the park, polished concrete floors, and rotating exhibitions of contemporary New Zealand work. There is a good café attached that locals use as much for coffee as for art.