‘Pleasure garden’ was the first work by Hodgkins to be acquired for the collection and remains one of the most controversial acquisitions in the Gallery’s history. It was brought to New Zealand, along with several other Hodgkins paintings, by the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1948. The Society wished to secure a Hodgkins for its collection but elected not to acquire any of the works and instead ‘to use the funds more wisely’.
However, a group of Christchurch subscribers did purchase ‘Pleasure garden’, and presented it to the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in 1949. The painting was rejected ‘on its [lack of] merits’. Controversy ensued and, when the work was again offered to Christchurch City Council in July 1951, it was finally taken into the Robert McDougall Art Gallery’s collection.
The renowned New Zealand art historian E.H. McCormick commented that: ‘The Pleasure Garden Incident was perhaps a turning point, in the struggle of New Zealand art to free itself from the bondage of timid prejudice and sterile convention. From 1951, when ‘Pleasure garden’ was finally accepted and hung, a future historian may find it convenient to date New Zealand’s emergence from colonial status in the arts.’
(Brought to Light, November 2009)

Presented by a Group of Subscribers, 1951
Watercolour
69/08
1932