B.

E. Raphael Gully’s Pleasure Garden

Behind the scenes

This brilliant take on the Pleasure Garden incident appeared in the Nag's Head Press's Bookie No.2 in 1950.

E. Raphael Gully The Pleasure Garden. Oil, Tempera, Gouache, Pen and Wash

E. Raphael Gully The Pleasure Garden. Oil, Tempera, Gouache, Pen and Wash

Accompanied by this sardonic note on p.118:

Our Frontispiece : The Pleasure Garden

This highly-controversial painting, in which the artist has again created a set of symbols of pure, Nag's Head, New Zealand pleasure – in spite of a significant omission of all horsessence – was recently purchased, unframed, by a group of enthusiastic Nag's Head subscribers and offered, in turn, to the Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, the Dunedin Art Gallery, and all North Island art galleries of any standing, only to meet with a complete and final rejection in every case. As a last resort, it has now been submitted to the McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch, where there is still some hope of its being accepted by the advisory committee, though at the time of going to press, the price of a suitable frame is still being hotly debated. A 400-page brochure on the "Gully Case", or the "P.G. Incident", is at present being prepared for publication at the Nag's Head Press, in which work it is hoped to include an article by professor Entwistle on how to acquire standards of judgment for modern art, with appropriate references to the present decline of artistic taste in New Zealand, more particularly in the North Island.

The Nag's Head Press was established by Bob Gormack in the late 1940s and operated from his home in the Christchurch suburb of Burnside from the 1960s through to his death in 2006. Bookie was his horseracing spoof of the Caxton Press's Book which ran for nine issues in the 1940s.

Bookie Nos. 1 and 2 'The Cultural Miscellany for Passionate Punters', printed by Bob Gormack at the Nag's Head Press. Robert and Barbara Stewart Library and Archives, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Peter Dunbar Caxton Press Collection, purchased with assistance from the Dunbar Family and the J L Hay Charitable Trust

Bookie Nos. 1 and 2 'The Cultural Miscellany for Passionate Punters', printed by Bob Gormack at the Nag's Head Press. Robert and Barbara Stewart Library and Archives, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Peter Dunbar Caxton Press Collection, purchased with assistance from the Dunbar Family and the J L Hay Charitable Trust