| Pleasure Garden | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Frances Hodgkins |
| Completion date | 1932 |
| Medium | watercolour |
| Movement | British modernism |
| Subject | Bridgnorth in Shropshire |
| Dimensions | 87.5 cm × 75 cm (34.4 in × 30 in) |
| Location | Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Christchurch |
| Website | christchurchartgallery |
Pleasure Garden (1932) is a watercolour painting by Frances Hodgkins that sparked considerable controversy when it was rejected as a gift to the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in Christchurch, New Zealand. Hodgkins, born in New Zealand, had permanently relocated to the United Kingdom in 1927. After she died in 1947, with many prominent British galleries holding her work, there was a desire to have some of her works held by the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. The Canterbury Society of Arts (CSA) organised for some paintings to come to New Zealand on loan, including Pleasure Garden. The CSA sent Hodgkins' works back, having decided against purchasing any. The artist Margaret Frankel organised a fundraising campaign to purchase Pleasure Garden and to gift it to Christchurch City Council as the owner of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. It took a year-long campaign before the painting was accepted, with Auckland City Art Gallery meanwhile having offered to purchase the painting.