Frizzell presents his great works in Bay exhibition

New Zealand artist Dick Frizzell with his original painting of Sir Edmund Hillary.

A collection of prints gifted to the Hawke's Bay Museum Trust by one of the country's most acclaimed artists, who has a local touch, is set to be unveiled this Saturday.

Dick Frizzell, who was born in Auckland but spent many years living in Hawke's Bay, gifted a major collection of artist's proofs to the trust in 2011.

It is a set of works which had been produced in addition to each of his limited edition prints and they date from the early stages of the artist's creative life to the present day.

The exhibition, which will be launched in the wake of a floor talk by Mr Frizzell in the gallery at 11am on Saturday, is called Artist's Proof with the works being set out in chronological order in what is described as a "whistle-stop tour through the riotous imagination of one of New Zealand's most contemporary artists".

The most recent work will be a new 2015 edition of the original titled Still life with glass of wine and olive branch.

It was first created in 1977.

Mr Frizzell has forged a strong name in the art world since setting out to make prints in the late 1970s after shrugging off the world of advertising.

It was after the establishment of Auckland's Muka Studios in 1984 that Mr Frizzell was fully drawn into the world of printmaking and screen printing.

Also showing as part of the MTG Hawke's Bay's autumn season of art is an exhibition by Napier-based artist Tim Thatcher.

Titled Give Me Shelter it is a series of bleak coastal landscapes which are inhabited by what he describes as "severe" semi-industrial sculptures.

The exhibition Free Radicals - paint and painting 1970 - 1990 is also on show and features recently gifted works by several notable artists, while Hastings-raised satirical artist Bryan Dew's works between 1940 and 2006 are also on display.