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Save the McDougall, Botanical Gardens, Christchurch (2026)

12/10/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

Only one person – a Christchurch resident - has signed our petition this week but they made an excellent comment. They said “it is important that we retain culturally important buildings and we want our historic paintings displayed in the place that was designated for this purpose….”. In other words, when the McDougall reopens it should become the city’s home for our historical art. They are absolutely right.

The reason for this is because the McDougall is the best neo classical art gallery in the country and therefore most suited to displaying such works. It can display 300 historical paintings in one hang. I do not have the latest number of historical works in the city’s collection but back in 2006 there were 684 oil paintings and 450 watercolours for a total of 1134. There were also 450 drawings and 1355 prints. These numbers have been added onto substantially since. So, there is no shortage of works to be displayed in it when it reopens. And Canterbury Museum will also have some of their collection to display.

At the moment in the Christchurch Art Gallery there are 59 historical works on display in the downstairs Sutton Gallery and about 30 in one of the upstairs galleries for a total of 89 works which is almost 8% of the total historical and watercolour collection back in 2006 which is now a much better proportion than shown previously.

So how should the public expect the Christchurch Art Gallery to be run?

-it comprises 10 dedicated exhibition spaces totaling 2950 sq m with 4 galleries on the ground floor and 6 on the first floor.

- by having large collections of both historical and contemporary art works it is by definition a museum of art and with that comes a responsibility not only to many donors but also the citizens of Christchurch. As a result:

- it is incumbent on the gallery that they show collection works both historical and contemporary rotationally all the time.

-this means that the first floor of the gallery should have on view an equitable representation of both historical and contemporary New Zealand and international art works from the collections.

- as part of this, a number of the best and most valuable historical works should remain on show permanently.

-at any one time the gallery should aim at installing and have on permanent exhibition around 80 historical and 80 contemporary works - at least 7 to 8% of the current historical collection holdings.

- the ground floor galleries were originally designed to be used for temporary and visiting exhibitions – a balance expected by the visiting public.

The good news is that at today’s figure of 89 historical works on display the gallery is showing, according to my calculations, about the number it should be and was designed for. That is a huge improvement. But they should still aim to have a group of the best and most valuable historical works on permanent display.

And here are a couple of the historical paintings in Timeless: Treasures from the Historical Collection in the downstairs Sutton Gallery:

Teresena c1874 oil on canvas Lord Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) presented by Canterbury Society of Arts 1932 to the McDougall Art Gallery.

Making Ligurian Lace c1905 oil on canvas Henry La Thangue (1859-1929) Purchased by the Canterbury Society of Arts, 1912, with the J T Peacock bequest; presented to the McDougall Art Gallery 1932. This is another painting donated originally by a member of my family.

Both of these works are magnificent paintings. All public collections of art have major and minor works and it is a gallery’s responsibility that the best are always able to be seen. Both of these paintings were part of the Gallery’s foundation collection and are deserving of having a permanent place in gallery space. The painting ‘Teresina’ in particular, by Frederic Leighton, is by one of the great masters of British art of the Victorian era and whilst it is good to see it up for ‘Timeless Treasures’ it should not remain mostly hidden in a storeroom as it has over the past 20 years.

The Christchurch Art Gallery, run as a public art gallery, can only display a very small part of the city’s historical collection, so when the McDougall reopens with its display capacity of 300 paintings, how it is used will become a vital question for the city and its art lovers.

If you wish to see the McDougall Art Gallery, when it reopens, used only for the historical art owned by the city as a whole and any works that can be borrowed in from other galleries it is imperative you sign my petition. The link is:

Save the McDougall as our Museum of Historical Art - Petitions.nz

Please send this posting on to all your Facebook friends and ask them to forward it onto their friends. In that way we can hopefully build the numbers up.

Thank you everyone for your support.

Tim Seay

Save the McDougall Campaign 13th October 2026

04/10/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

Our petition has only advanced to 1425 this week and unfortunately the signatory did not record their name or their city. As I have emphasised before it is important for people to record their name and also where they live.

It is important before the McDougall reopens for the city’s art lovers, who were gifted this beautiful building, to make their views well known as to how they want the Museum and Council to run it by signing the petition.

The only news I am aware of this past week was an article in the Press on Friday 2nd October by Jaenine Parkinson, chief executive of Museums Aotearoa, concerning the remaining financing of Canterbury Museum’s redevelopment project headed “Deeper debate needed on funding model”. Essentially, she was saying that museum projects like this to preserve our cultural history are sufficiently important to our future to warrant the same support from both local and central government as other essential infrastructure projects. In other words, the Christchurch Council and the Government between them should meet the remaining financial cost of the project.

In the meantime, neither seem willing to provide further funding and the Council is hoping the Government will, as part of their election campaigning, provide further funding over the next few weeks. We will have to wait until after the election to learn how this will all work out but it would seem inevitable costs could have blown out further due to increasing construction and manufacturing expenses resulting from the Iran War.

The Museum is continuing to sort out further paintings from their collection that are of a public art gallery standard to show in the McDougall. They have a large art collection from which to select suitable works that will over time make a useful contribution to the city’s overall historical art collection. They have a lot of portraits left to them by people who wanted their family records preserved. Here are another two such works they have selected:

Portrait of Artist’s Mother oil on canvas by Archibald Nicoll

Portrait of Thomas Cass 1868 oil on canvas by Samuel Butler

Thomas Cass (1817–1895) was a pioneer surveyor and a leader in early Canterbury. He served as the Canterbury Chief Surveyor from 1851 to 1867.

In the meantime, before the McDougall reopens it is important the city’s art lovers, who were gifted this beautiful building, make their views well known as to how they want the Museum and Council to run it by signing the petition. It has been leased to Canterbury Museum for 50 years and they don’t have an historical art collection of a public art gallery standard of a sufficient size to utilise the gallery as the city has.

What they do have is a substantial collection of historical works, largely watercolours, which have been in storage for many years because the Museum has never had the facilities to display them or the funding from the Council to carry out the necessary conservation work required on many of them.

Having the McDougall incorporated into the redeveloped Museum will provide the Museum with the incentive to start displaying their collection. The lease agreement allows for the Museum of course to borrow historical works from the city’s collection stored at the Christchurch Art Gallery and from any other available source so that the gallery can be used for the purposes for which it was designed and built and gifted – namely the display of the city’s historical art.

What is important is that the Museum do not use it instead for other purposes such as the display of other objects in the Museum’s collection which would dishonour the terms of Robert McDougall’s gift to the people of Christchurch. It is the best neo classical art gallery in the country and its proper use in terms of its architectural and cultural heritage as recorded in its Conservation Plan is the display of historical art.

This is the reason why it is important that before the gallery reopens the city’s art lovers show the Council and the Museum that they wish the McDougall to continue to be the main art gallery where the city’s historical art is displayed.

If you wish to see the McDougall Art Gallery, when it reopens, used only for the historical art owned by the city as a whole it is imperative you sign my petition. The link is:

Save the McDougall as our Museum of Historical Art - Petitions.nz

Please send this posting on to all your Facebook friends and ask them to forward it onto their friends. In that way we can hopefully build the numbers up.

Thank you everyone for your support.

Tim Seay

Save the McDougall 5th October 2026

27/09/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

Our petition has increased to 1424 with mainly local Christchurch signatories. It continues to creep up slowly each week. Thank you to those that have signed.

A couple of interesting things happened this week. Last weekend the exhibition ‘Timeless – Treasures from the Historical collection’ which is themed around time and place opened in the Christchurch Art Gallery in the downstairs Sutton Gallery. It includes a representation of major works from Britain, Europe and New Zealand as diverse as Petrus van der Velden’s the Dutch Funeral to Henry La Thangue’s ‘Ligurian Lace’ and Evelyn Page’s ‘Summer Morn’. For every work in the exhibition there are 4 or 5 other ‘treasures’ that need to be resurrected from the picture store.

At the moment the only space dedicated to the city’s historical collection of 600 oil paintings and 300 watercolours is the Sutton Gallery and around 30 works displayed upstairs. Rather than making a token gesture of showing the best of the collection, there should be a concerted effort to make the main ‘treasures’ of the historical collection permanently on display as was intended when the new gallery was opened in 2003. One of the commitments that was made when a case was put to both the City Council and the public for the building of a new art gallery was that the public would be able to see more of the best of the city’s collection.

On most of the past 20 years there has been less of the historical collection on display than was seen at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. This is a breach of the understanding reached with the donors to the gallery as well as with past donors of the paintings who donated their works to the city’s collection on the understanding they would be displayed to the public. At least half of the display space of the gallery should be devoted to the city’s historical collection.

Interestingly, the new display in the Sutton Gallery included two paintings which have virtually never been seen before despite being bought with ratepayers’ funds.

An Italian Landscape watercolour Copley Fielding (1787-1855) purchased 1970
It was last displayed once in the 1980’s.

Nightfall on the Sabine Hills, Rome 1921 Frederick Vincent Ellis (1892-1961) oil on board purchased 1989. It was last seen in the 1990’s.

It is appalling how little some of our art collection has been displayed to the public. One day this problem can be solved when the McDougall Art Gallery finally reopens with its display capacity of around 300 historical works.

In the Press, on Tuesday 22nd, Mike Yardley in his weekly column was critical of the Canterbury Museum Board in respect to the financial information it has disclosed concerning the funding for the rest of its project. It is still uncertain where all of the remaining funding will come from and whether costs have increased further due the Iran War. The Museum Board is hoping the political parties might offer further funding before the November election by when the Council will finally have to bring to a head the whole question of the financing of both the Museum and Cathedral projects.

In the meantime, our interest is in the completion of the McDougall. The Council is paying for its strengthening and base isolation with an estimated cost of $24.5m. There has been no mention of how the costs are going. Perhaps this will be disclosed when the next report is released after the election.

In the meantime, before the McDougall reopens it is important the city’s art lovers, who were gifted this beautiful building, make their views well known as to how they want the Museum and Council to run it by signing the petition.

If you wish to see the McDougall Art Gallery when it reopens used only for the historical art owned by the city as a whole it is imperative you sign my petition. The link is:

Save the McDougall as our Museum of Historical Art - Petitions.nz

Please send this posting on to all your Facebook friends and ask them to forward it onto their friends. In that way we can hopefully build the numbers up.

Thank you everyone for your support.

Tim Seay

Save the McDougall Campaign 27 September 2026

20/09/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

Our petition has moved up to 1422. Progress each week is slow but steady. Please keep it going.

The news this week was the headline in the Press on Tuesday that there were new concerns for the museum project. Journalist Tina Law reported that a leaked confidential letter from the Museum Board to the Council expressed their concern that they could not access the funding required for its project’s stage five services fit out until it had secured all the funding needed for the entire project. They had hoped to carry out the services fit out before the building was completed and failure to do so would result in a 12 month delay to the project and additional costs of $7.2m. The Board also expressed concern around the Council’s earlier $28.6m loan towards the construction costs to be paid back with interest over 25 years. The Board advised the Council it had been planning on using that money to go towards the increased operating costs of the new larger museum.

There was no mention of any increased costs having been incurred due to the continuing and now worsening Iran War which you would think are inevitable as we already know it has caused the costs of some building materials to soar in price. The Museum and Council are hoping that one of the two main political parties might offer to contribute further funding before the election in November and until this is known presumably the Council nor the Museum will announce any further details about funding for the project. But there is no doubt the Council is likely to be left with a huge problem in financing the Cathedral reconstruction and the Museum project.

As mentioned before one advantage of Canterbury Museum’s redevelopment project is that it is giving it the opportunity of working on its own extensive art collection to prepare some of it for display in both the McDougall and in its own expanded new buildings. The old Museum always had an art gallery of their own in which from my experience they never used for their own art. I am not sure whether they will have such a gallery in their new buildings but there should be plenty of spaces available to display art works. It is not known yet how many paintings they will eventually be able to provide of a public art gallery standard but they will eventually become an important addition to the 600 oil paintings and 300 watercolours already in the city’s historical art collection currently stored at the Christchurch Art Gallery. So far, I know they have selected out their first ten best works for display in the McDougall and here are another two of these works:

On the Look Out 1883 Thomas Selby Cousins oil on canvas

Cobb Coach in Otira Valley 1897 John Gibb oil on canvas

In the meantime, I understand the Christchurch Art Gallery has opened a new historical art display in their downstairs Sutton Gallery presumably showing some of the city’s best works. Apart from around 30 historical works, mainly landscapes, that have been shown for a long time in an upstairs gallery, the rest of the gallery is devoted to contemporary art. Continuing to run the gallery with such an unbalanced display as between contemporary and historical art is completely unacceptable as the end result is that it is actually denying the public the opportunity to see the collection of art that belongs to them. In most cases it has been given to them and in some cases, it has been purchased with their own ratepayer money. It also dishonours the terms of the donors’ gifts which included an understanding that their works would be displayed to the public. Otherwise, why else would they have given their paintings to the city?

This is the reason why it is important before the McDougall reopens that the city’s art lovers, who were gifted this beautiful building, make their views well known to the Council and Museum staff by signing the petition.

The petition is available now for the Council and Museum to see and will be formally presented to them well before the gallery reopens.

If you wish to see the McDougall Art Gallery when it reopens used only for the historical art owned by the city as a whole it is imperative you sign my petition. The link is:

Save the McDougall as our Museum of Historical Art - Petitions.nz

Please send this posting on to all your Facebook friends and ask them to forward it onto their friends. In that way we can hopefully build the numbers up.

Thank you everyone for your support.

Tim Seay

Save the McDougall Campaign 20 September 2026

14/09/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

Our petition this week has moved on slowly again to 1418 with some further wonderful comments from art lovers saying how much they used to love the McDougall as an art gallery and the art that was displayed in it and how they want to see the city’s historical art displayed again to the public.

I visited the Christchurch Art Gallery this week to see the exhibition Bird Land which is an impressive showing of historical and contemporary works of both national and international bird life. The exhibition is certainly comprehensive and incorporates a variety of media including photography. Some of the early paintings by artists of our native birds are absolutely wonderful and were borrowed from almost every source in the country as well as some from the city’s collection and other private collections.

The only works on display from the city’s historical collection were the usual 30 odd mainly landscapes some of which have changed recently. I was surprised to see one of Lawrence William Wilson’s watercolours amongst them:

Pembroke Lake Wanaka 1900 watercolour Lawrence William Wilson (1851-1912) Ronald Jeffrey bequest 2009

This is one of the five Wilson watercolours in the city’s collection and I believe is an absolutely magnificent work. It was gifted to the city in 2009 but it was not exhibited for the first 10 years once in the collection which is an example of how long historical works in recent times have remained in storage unseen by the public.

The gallery is currently advertising a new display of historical works to be displayed in the downstairs Sutton gallery on 19 September called “Timeless – Treasures from the Historical Collection”. It will feature the Dutch Funeral and several other of the best paintings in the collection. While it is good to see some of the historical collection being displayed, the Sutton gallery is a far too smaller an area to be devoted to historical art when there are 600 oil paintings and 300 watercolours in the collection. It should be at least half of the total gallery display space. And the three paintings being shown in the advertisement should normally be on permanent display at any rate. But at least it is an improvement on the corrugated iron fence in darkness which was once displayed in the Sutton gallery.

Continuing to run the gallery with such an unbalanced display as between contemporary and historical art is completely unacceptable as the end result is that it is actually denying the public the opportunity to see the collection of art that belongs to them. In most cases it has been given to them and in some cases, it has been purchased with their own ratepayer money. It also dishonours the terms of the donors’ gifts which included an understanding that their works would be displayed to the public. Otherwise, why else would they have given their paintings to the city. Despite the Council having a set of rules laid down in their Long Term Plan which prevents them from interfering with what works are displayed by the staff at any one time in the Gallery, there is no way they can be seen to be party to preventing the public from being able to view their own art. This is what is happening at the moment. It is totally unacceptable and has to stop. Why doesn’t the Council take an interest in it?

And here is the painting that was the frontispiece of the collection and always on display:

The Dutch Funeral 1872 Petrus van der Velden (1837-1913) oil on canvas gifted by Henry Charles van Asch

Tim Seay

Save the McDougall Campaign 13 September 2026

06/09/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

Our petition continued to slowly move forward this week and has now reached 1409 with one local signatory commenting that they did not enjoy the art now being shown in the City Council’s facilities. This is a comment that has been made by quite a few petitioners. I presume they are people who have gone to the Christchurch Art Gallery expecting to see historical art works and have seen instead only contemporary art. It is a comment that has been made quite often by petitioners.

It is hardly surprising. I have been visiting the Christchurch Art Gallery since when Jenny Harper was appointed the Director in 2006 and later Blair Jackson in 2018. And during that time the gallery has displayed, in my view, ever increasingly extreme so called contemporary art exhibitions of the most weird objects such as a corrugated iron fence in darkness, chains hanging from the ceiling, a tree branch hanging from the ceiling of the glass entrance façade, people’s washing (clothes) hanging on lines and shopping lists written on long sheets of paper. I cannot belief that the majority of Christchurch’s art lovers can possibly consider such displays as being art of any form.

In recent times, I have regularly only seen around 30 conventional historical paintings on display - mainly landscapes. This is a tiny proportion of the city’s historical collection which consists of around 600 oil paintings and 300 watercolours valued at around $30m. Worse still is the fact that all the best historical works, some worth millions, are not on permanent display. This is outrageously disrespectful to the donors of these works and the city’s art lovers who want to see them regularly.

But that is not the end of the disrespect as the gallery itself was built with the help of private donors for the intended purpose of being able to show more of the city’s collection as the McDougall had become too small. It cost $35m to build and was badly damaged in the earthquakes and cost a further $50m to repair and was closed for 5 years! And after all that this beautiful new contemporary gallery is showing less of the city’s collection than before. And the Council who owns this building allows the management to carry on showing a totally unbalanced display of the city’s available art. Why the Council is allowing this is another story.

To show how bad the situation is I have recently discovered an artist whose wonderful paintings donated to the city have not been seen for probably over 25 years! The city’s collection holds five works by the artist Laurence William Wilson who is also represented in the collections of all the major galleries in New Zealand as well as the Hocken Library in Dunedin, the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington and Canterbury Museum. Wilson came to New Zealand in 1870 and lived in Christchurch until 1877 then briefly in Auckland before finally establishing himself as an artist in Dunedin in 1883. In the heyday of the New Zealand art market Wilson’s paintings were often fetching $20,000 - $30,000 at auction. Today it is more like only $3,000 - $4,000. The city holds five of his works – here are two:

West Coast Road near the Bealey 1905 oil on panel Laurence William Wilson (1851-1912) donated by David Langley 1964.

Preservation Inlet 1887 oil on panel Lawrence William Wilson (1851-1912) donated by Cyril and Jane Smith 2014

This is the reason why it is important before the McDougall reopens that the city’s art lovers, who were gifted this beautiful building, make their views well known to the Council and Museum staff by signing the petition.

The petition is available now for the Council and Museum to see and will be formally presented to them well before the gallery reopens.

If you wish to see the McDougall Art Gallery when it reopens used only for the historical art owned by the city as a whole it is imperative you sign my petition. The link is:

Save the McDougall as our Museum of Historical Art - Petitions.nz

Please send this posting on to all your Facebook friends and ask them to forward it onto their friends. In that way we can hopefully build the numbers up.

Thank you everyone for your support.

Tim Seay

Save the McDougall Campaign 6 September 2026

30/08/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

Our petition has gained another two signatories this week to reach 1402 both making interesting comments. The first from Christchurch mentioned in passing that Robert McDougall gave the gallery in order to display his own art collection. While he did give the gallery three beautiful paintings, he purchased these locally. The reason he gave the city the gallery was because it wanted him to because it didn’t have a purpose built art gallery and the Council could not raise the necessary funds from the public to build one. This was despite the Canterbury Society of Arts and the Jamieson family offering to give their collections to the city if a suitable gallery was built. When the gallery opened in 1932 the main part of the original collection came from the Society of Arts.

Since then, the historical collection has been built up over the years by generous donors to around 600 oil paintings and 300 watercolours. A few have also been purchased with Council funding. In 2002 the collection was moved to the Christchurch Art Gallery in preparation for its opening in 2003 and the Council leased the McDougall Art Gallery to Canterbury Museum in 2003 for 50 years to be included in their redevelopment programme which did not begin until 2023 and is not due for completion until 2029! As a result, the McDougall which was not damaged in the 2011 earthquakes will not have been used properly as an art gallery for 27 years if it reopens in 2029. However, it would have had to have been closed for a period after the earthquakes to be earthquake strengthened and other work like all public buildings in Christchurch.

But it is worse than that for our art lovers because since Jenny Harper was appointed the Director of the new Christchurch Art Gallery in 2006 the Council has allowed its successive management over the years to mainly display contemporary art. It is now so bad that when ever I visit I can only count up around 30 historical works – a tiny proportion of the total art on display. And in recent times the contemporary displays have been so extreme that there is no way it can even be called art! The end result of this mismanagement is that there is now well over $60m of historical art that the gallery staff are purposely preventing the public from viewing. And this is approved by the Council. A scandalous situation that must come to an end.

In order to show the extent of this problem I have recently selected at random around five paintings from the Christchurch Art Gallery’s website that I just happen to like myself. The first one is yet another foundation painting from the Canterbury Society of Arts:

Near Burnham Beeches 1887 watercolour on board Octavius Rickatson (1856-1941) presented by Canterbury Society of Arts 1932

It was selected at the Royal Academy London by the then president of the Royal Academy Sir Fredric Leighton in 1887 with 3 other paintings purchased for 31 pounds 10 shillings on behalf of the Canterbury Society of Arts.

Beeches is the remains of a great primeval forest that once covered much of the county of Buckinghamshire. It lies a short distance to the west of London and became a public domain in 1880. At that time there was considerable concern about the rapid growth of London and its impact on the countryside. Art showing rural scenes became very popular and Octavius Rickatson produced many romantic rural works throughout his career. This painting shows Rickatson’s traditional watercolour approach. Requiring a great deal of skill, the composition is built up with carefully layered washes of colour. Near Burnham Beeches was exhibited at the 1887 Royal Academy Exhibition.

This particular painting has not been displayed to the public for so long I doubt anyone knows when it last was seen!

This is the reason why it is important before the McDougall reopens that the city’s art lovers, who were gifted this beautiful building, make their views well known to the Council and Museum staff by signing the petition.

The petition is available now for the Council and Museum to see and will be formally presented to them well before the gallery reopens.

If you wish to see the McDougall Art Gallery when it reopens used only for the historical art owned by the city as a whole it is imperative you sign my petition. The link is:

Save the McDougall as our Museum of Historical Art - Petitions.nz

Please send this posting on to all your Facebook friends and ask them to forward it onto their friends. In that way we can hopefully build the numbers up.

Thank you everyone for your support.

Tim Seay

Save the McDougall Campaign 30 August 2026

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