Pleasure Garden (painting)

Frances Hodgkins was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1869, and after studying there she travelled to Europe multiple times before eventually settling in the United Kingdom permanently around 1927.{{Cite web |last=Gill |first=Linda |date=1993 |title=Hodgkins, Frances Mary |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2h41/hodgkins-frances-mary |access-date=24 September 2024 |website=Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand }} She exhibited extensively in Europe and in 1940 her work was selected for the 22nd Venice Biennale representing Great Britain, although the event was cancelled because of the declaration of war.{{Cite web |date=1959 |title=Frances Hodgkins Paintings and Drawings |url=https://cdn.aucklandunlimited.com/artgallery/assets/media/1959-the-paintings-and-drawings-by-frances-hodgkins-catalogue.pdf |access-date=24 September 2024 |website=Auckland Art Gallery}} Hodgkins died in Dorchester, England, on 13 May 1947.{{Cite book |last=McCormick |first=Eric |title=Frances Hodgkins: Biography Ascent: A Pictorial A Journal of the Arts in New Zealand |date=1969 |publisher=Caxton Press in Association with the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand |pages=8}}

Five years after Hodgkins' death, the British Arts Council mounted a Memorial Exhibition at Tate Gallery.{{Cite web |title=Frances Hodgkins |url=https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/frances-hodgkins |access-date=24 September 2024}} Her work is held by a number of public art museums including Tate in London who have significant holdings of her works in their collections.{{Cite web |title=Frances Hodgkins |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/frances-hodgkins-1296 |access-date=24 September 2024 |website=Tate}}

In the summer of 1932, Hodgkins holidayed with fellow artist Hannah Ritchie{{Cite web |title=Sabrina's Garden |url= https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/8123/frances-hodgkins/sabrinas-garden |access-date=24 September 2024}} at Bridgnorth, Shropshire, on the River Severn. The result of this visit was a number of paintings, watercolours and drawings, including Pleasure Garden and Enchanted Garden, now in the collection of the Sheffield Art Gallery.{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Neil |title=A commemoration: Frances Hodgkins Works 1929–1946 |date=1998 |publisher=Robert McDougall Art Gallery |isbn=0-908874-31-6 }} Tony Green, Professor of Art History at the University of Auckland, described Hodgkins' work at this time as showing "suggestions of Braque's still lifes of the late twenties".{{Cite journal |last=Green |first=Anthony S. |date=1969 |title=Reflections on the Hodgkins Exhibition Frances Hodgkins: Biography |journal=Ascent: A Pictorial a Journal of the Arts in New Zealand |issue=4 |pages=39}} In his foreword to the catalogue of the Lefevre Gallery Retrospective in 1946, critic Eric Newton noted that Hodgkins could make watercolours "sing" and even make "browns look positively rapturous", concluding: "She can juggle with colour orchestrally".{{Cite book |last=Hodgkins |first=Frances |title=Letters of Frances Hodgkins |date=1994 |isbn=978-1-86940-081-1 |editor-last=Gill |editor-first=Linda |pages=464|publisher=Auckland University Press }} Art historian Elizabeth Eastmond describes Pleasure Garden as being ‘suggestive of Chinese painting’ a subject that had been featured in the art journal Studio the summer Pleasure Garden was painted. Eastmond also proposes that the statue, unattended table, ’curiously placed cloth and oddly distinct black vase’ gives the painting a surrealist look that could be linked to the painter de Chirico.{{Cite book |last1=Buchanan |first1=Ian |title=Frances Hodgkins Paintings and Drawings |last2=Dunn |first2=Michael |last3=Eastmond |first3=Elizabeth |publisher=Auckland University Press |year=1994 |pages=58}}

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Hodgkins died in 1947 and the following year the Canterbury Society of Arts (CSA), mindful that her work was not included in the collection of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, undertook to purchase three paintings and donate them to the gallery. Margaret Frankel, a member of the CSA's Council, worked with the British Arts Council to select six works as possible purchases from the Lefevre Gallery in London. Among the six were Ruined Mine in Wales,{{Cite web |title=Ruined Mine in Wales |url=https://collection.thesuter.org.nz/objects/330/ruined-mine-wales |access-date=24 September 2024}} Still life with Fruit Dishes{{Cite web |title=Still Life with Fruit Dishes |url=https://collection.dunedin.art.museum/objects/784/still-life-with-fruit-dishes |access-date=24 September 2024}} and Pleasure Garden.{{Cite book |last=Simpson |first=Peter |title=Bloomsbury South: the arts in Christchurch 1933–1953 |date=2016 |publisher=Auckland University Press |isbn=978-1-86940-848-0 |series=Gerrard & Marti Friedlander creative lives series |location=Auckland |pages=259}} The works arrived in New Zealand and were released from customs under bond in October to be displayed in the 1948 Group exhibition. To the surprise of the press, however, the Secretary of the CSA, William Baverstock (later to be the first professional director of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery) made it clear that the works were definitely "not part of the show" and were not to be "reviewed as part of the exhibition".{{Cite news |date=29 October 1948 |title=Work Of Frances Hodgkins |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19481029.2.107 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=8}}

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After discussion, the CSA Council declined to purchase any of the Hodgkins works. The reason was that many of their members were unaware of how contemporary art had developed in Europe lately; the work was too modern for their taste.{{cite web |title=Pleasure Garden |url= https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/6908/frances-hodgkins/pleasure-garden |publisher=Christchurch Art Gallery |access-date=28 September 2024}} The following year Frankel initiated a fundraising campaign to purchase Pleasure Garden and gift it to the Robert McDougall Art Gallery via the Christchurch City Council.{{Cite news |date=19 March 1949 |title=Frances Hodgkins Picture Fund |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19490319.2.110 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=8}} The 39 subscribers included five current or former members of the Council of the CSA and ten working artists.{{Cite news |date=22 June 1949 |title=Painting By Famous N.Z. Woman Artist Rejected |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19490622.2.8 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=Northern Advocate |pages=2}} Notable contributors included Rita Angus, Heathcote Helmore, Douglas Lilburn, Ngaio Marsh, Colin McCahon, Olivia Spencer Bower and the Caxton Press.{{Cite web |title=Frances Hodgkins Pleasure Garden 1932 |url= https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/bulletin/173/frances-hodgkinss-pleasure-garden-1932 |access-date=24 September 2024 |website=Christchurch Art Gallery}} A full list of donors including the amount of each individual's contribution has been preserved.{{cite web |title=Untitled |url= https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/media/uploads/2010_07/PleasureGardenlist.pdf |publisher=Christchurch Art Gallery |access-date=28 September 2024}} In preparation for the presentation of the painting to the City Council, Pleasure Garden was displayed in the window of Beaths department store to a mixed reception.{{Cite news |date=27 June 1949 |title=Rejection of Painting |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19490627.2.134 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=8}}

In July the painting was finally offered to the City Council to become part of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery's collection. After Margaret Frankel made an hour-long case for the work{{Cite news |date=19 July 1949 |title=Work By Frances Hodgkins |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19490719.2.37 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=4}} the Christchurch City Council, on the recommendation of its artist advisors Archibald Nicoll, Richard Wallwork and Cecil Kelly,{{Cite news |date=22 July 1949 |title=Picture, Committee, And Council |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19490722.2.47 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=6}} declined to accept the painting for the Robert McDougall Art Gallery{{Cite news |date=19 July 1949 |title=Art Controversy |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19490719.2.49 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=Otago Daily Times |pages=4}} claiming it to be "unintelligible".{{Cite news |date=27 May 1969 |title='Pleasure Garden' Again |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19690527.2.67 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=8}} It was also described as something "{{nbsp}}... a child could do{{nbsp}}...".{{Cite news |date=22 June 1949 |title=Rejection of Painting |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19490622.2.44 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=4}} The decision sparked numerous letters for and against in the local press. The letter of artist Colin McCahon berated the council and its advisors: "These gentlemen must be very proud of the three tombs of dead art they have helped to preserve so well, and for so long in this city". The three tombs he referred to were the Canterbury College of Art, the CSA and the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.{{Cite news |date=20 June 1949 |title=Frances Hodgkins Picture |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19490620.2.44.1 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=5}} The decision also created consternation throughout New Zealand with prominent arts people like John Beaglehole, James Bertram, Charles Brasch, Helen Hitchings, M. H. Holcroft, Fredrick Page, Douglas Lilburn, Mervin Taylor and Harry Tombs all writing to the mayor of Christchurch in protest.{{Cite news |date=2 July 1949 |title=Regret Expressed at Rejection of Painting |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WC19490702.2.65 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=Wanganui Chronicle |pages=6}} Frankel herself made the case for Hodgkins' works, including Pleasure Garden, in the 1949 Yearbook of the Arts. "The dispute over the acceptance of the Pleasure Garden exposed the difficulty of implementing any kind of progressive plan for the Gallery if the advisory committee to purchase continued to represent 'only one school of painting'."{{Cite journal |last=Frankel |first=Margaret |date=1949 |title=The Pleasure Garden |journal=Yearbook of the Arts in New Zealand |issue=5 |pages=10–17}} In November Pleasure Garden was reproduced as a full-colour page in the Arts Year Book No 5.{{Cite news |date=30 November 1949 |title=An Annual Survey |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19491130.2.12 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=Otago Daily Times |pages=2}}

A month after the City Council's rejection of the work the Auckland City Art Gallery accepted Pleasure Garden on loan and immediately put it on exhibition.{{Cite news |date=16 August 1949 |title=Auckland Gallery to Hang Hodgkin's "Pleasure Garden" |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WC19490816.2.77 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=Wanganui Chronicle |pages=6}} John W. Kealy, chairman of the Auckland City Council's library committee, told reporters that "Paintings of this nature are of value in establishing interest in the gallery and making it alive".{{Cite news |date=22 December 1949 |title=The Pleasure Garden |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19491222.2.122 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=8}}

In the year following the controversy in Christchurch, Auckland City Art Gallery offered to purchase the painting leaving the owners uncertain of how to proceed.{{Cite news |date=14 October 1950 |title=Auckland Offer To Buy Controversial Painting |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GISH19501014.2.62 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=Gisborne Herald |pages=6}} In July 1951 Alan Brassington and Frankel made it clear they were prepared to accept the work from the Auckland Art Gallery if the work was refused again by the Christchurch City Council.{{Cite news |date=24 July 1951 |title=General News |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19510724.2.44 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=6}} When Pleasure Garden was finally presented to the council as a gift in September the vote taken agreed to accept the painting into the Robert McDougall Art Gallery's collection.{{Cite news |date=4 September 1951 |title="The Pleasure Garden" |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19510904.2.47 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=6}} Before its actual exhibition in the gallery, however, there was some delay while a new frame was made, but Baverstock, now acting as director, noted that a key position in the gallery had been saved for the work.{{Cite news |date=11 December 1951 |title="The Pleasure Garden" |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19511211.2.37 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=6}} Almost three years after the original offer to gift the work Pleasure Garden was finally exhibited to the general public in the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.{{Cite news |date=29 February 1952 |title=General News |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19520229.2.46 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=6}}

In March 1951, Bill Sutton painted Homage to Frances Hodgkins.{{Cite news |date=4 April 1951 |title=New Zealand Art |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19510404.2.97 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=8}} Sutton's painting shows key supporters of the painting Doris Lusk, Colin McCahon, Heathcote Helmore, Margaret Frankel, Beth Zanders, R. S. Lonsdale, A. C. Brassington, Olivia Spencer-Bower, John Oakley and Sutton grouped round Pleasure Garden resting on an easel.{{Cite news |date=6 March 1951 |title=The Pleasure Garden Controversy Recalled |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19510306.2.103 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=8}} The painting has been lost but a photograph exists and studies for it are in the collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery along with a number of drawings of the individuals portrayed.{{Cite web |title=Frances Hodgkins |url= https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/search?q=%22Homage+to+Frances+Hodgkins%22 |access-date=24 September 2024}}

A 2009–2022 exhibition that included this painting provided the following text:

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.

A selected list of exhibitions that have included Pleasure Garden:

• 1954 Frances Hodgkins and Her Circle Auckland Art Gallery. The exhibition was organised to coincide with the 1954 Auckland Festival of the Arts.{{Cite web |title=Frances Hodgkins and Her Circle |url=https://cdn.aucklandunlimited.com/artgallery/assets/media/1954-frances-hodgkins-circle-catalogue.pdf |access-date=24 September 2024}}
• 1962 Six New Zealand Expatriates: Grace Joel, Rhona Haszard, Frances Hodgkins, Francis McCracken, Raymond McIntyre, Owen Merton (group) Auckland Art Gallery. The exhibition was curated by Colin McCahon who was at that time Keeper of Collections.{{Cite web |title=Six New Zealand Expatriates: Grace Joel, Rhona Haszard, Frances Hodgkins, Francis McCracken, Raymond McIntyre, Owen Merton |url=https://cdn.aucklandunlimited.com/artgallery/assets/media/1962-six-new-zealand-expatriates-catalogue.pdf |access-date=24 September 2024}}
• 1968 Paper Treasures (group) Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch{{Cite news |date=13 July 1988 |title=Paper treasures on display |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19880713.2.107.7 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=21}}
• 1969 Frances Hodgkins 1869–1947 Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand and Auckland Art Gallery{{Cite news |date=6 June 1969 |title=Hodgkins Exhibition |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19690606.2.114 |access-date=24 September 2024 |work=The Press (Christchurch) |pages=10}}
• 1980 Canterbury Society of Arts (group) Robert McDougall Art Gallery{{Cite web |title=Canterbury Society of Arts |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/exhibitions/canterbury-society-of-arts |access-date=24 September 2024}}
• 1993 Frances Hodgkins Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and curated by Jill Trevelyan{{Cite book |last=Hodgkins |first=Frances |title=Frances Hodgkins |date=1993 |publisher=Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa |others=Museum of New Zealand |isbn=978-0-908843-05-3 |location=Wellington, N.Z}}
• 2015 Treasury: A Generous Legacy (group) Christchurch Art Gallery{{Cite web |title=Treasury: A Generous Legacy |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/exhibitions/treasury-a-generous-legacy |access-date=24 September 2024}}
• 2019 Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki{{Cite web |title=Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/exhibitions/frances-hodgkins-european-journeys |access-date=24 September 2024}}
• 2024 Pleasure Garden: Unheard Stories from the Collection Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū{{Cite web |title=Perilous: Unheard of Stories from the Collection |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/exhibitions/perilous-unheard-stories-from-the-collection |access-date=24 September 2024}}

• 2020 The Pleasure Garden An operetta based on the Pleasure Garden gift was written by Philip Norman and A.K. Grant.{{Cite web |date=1 September 2020 |title=Old guard vs Avant-Garde in The Pleasure Garden |url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert/programmes/upbeat/audio/2018762072/old-guard-vs-avant-garde-in-the-pleasure-garden |archive-date= |access-date=24 September 2024 |website=Radio New Zealand }}
• 2013 The Great Art War a musical by Stuart Hoar and Philip Norman based on the Pleasure Garden controversy premieres at the Court Theatre in Christchurch. William Baverstock was played by Philip Aldridge, Margaret Frankel and Dorothy Richmond by Delia Hannah, Alan Brassington by Robert Tripe and Frances Hodgkins by Juliet Reynolds-Midgley.{{Cite journal |date=2013 |title=Court Theatre Trust 2013 |url=https://courttheatre.org.nz/assets/Annual-Reports/2013-Annual-Report-The-Court-Theatre-Trust.pdf |journal=Court Theatre Trust 2013 Report |pages=13}} 

{{Reflist}}

• [https://completefranceshodgkins.com/objects/26391/pleasure-garden The Complete Frances Hodgkins]

Category:Landscape paintings

Category:Paintings in New Zealand

Category:1932 paintings

Category:Food and drink paintings

Category:Controversies in New Zealand

Category:Painting controversies