Te Tuhi was created in a partnership between the Fisher Gallery and the Pakuranga Community and Cultural Centre, the latter formally a Manukau City Council facility.

The Fisher Gallery had been created in the early 1980s by a dedicated and energetic group of local art lovers, who had decided that the area, only recently subdivided for residential use, needed an arts venue. The Fisher Gallery took its name from the Fisher family, who farmed the area prior to its suburbanisation and Iris Fisher, who was an original member of the Pakuranga Arts Society and the driving force behind the effort to build the new institution.

The name Te Tuhi was generously conferred on the institution by the Ngai Tai Iwi. The name refers to the legend of the ancestor Manawatere, a Maori voyager and explorer who arrived in the Hauraki Gulf prior to the arrival of the Tainui waka. Landing at the beach at Howick's Cockle Bay, he made his tuhi, or mark, on a pohutukawa tree located on the foreshore, using karamea, a red ochre. This was his sign to those who would follow, that this was the place he had chosen: Te Tuhi a Manawatere. The tree still stands today, although the tuhi has since disappeared.

Te Tuhi is administered by the Te Tuhi Contemporary Art Trust in conjunction with the Contemporary Art Foundation.