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Save the McDougall, Botanical Gardens, Christchurch (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

24/08/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

I am sorry for the delay in my latest posting but I have been really badly affected by one of the local winter bugs this year and have ended up spending virtually a week in bed and I am still recovering. I hope not too many of you have succumbed to these bugs but a lot have.

In the meantime, our petition has finally hit 1400 and the latest signatories have made some wonderful comments which have really touched me. As I have said before it is your comments that keep me going and I only wish my grandfather was alive to be able to learn how much his gift has been appreciated by the city’s art lovers. One local said:

“I'm a lover of art and history and believe that the gallery should be used for its original purpose, which is to display a wide range of historic artworks and have the most important amongst them be permanently viewable”.

Another:

This amazing historical building was gifted to Christchurch by a citizen in perpetuity. This should not be removed by anyone.

This is what my Save the McDougall Campaign is all about – to save it for the use of the city’s art lovers to whom it was given because it has been unnecessarily leased to Canterbury Museum for 50 years under a rather vague lease agreement which could possibly allow them to use it to some extent for their own uses rather than those of the city’s art lovers to whom Robert McDougall gave the gallery. His intended use of the gallery was to be a public art gallery for the city to enable it to establish and display its own historical collection and also display visiting exhibitions from other available collections. If the Museum when it opens in 2029 uses it for this purpose it will have to draw upon all the city’s available historical works.

It is naturally also interested in showing works from its own art collections which they haven’t had the opportunity to display in public for years. Many of their works will probably need some restoration and preparatory work to prepare them for display in a public art gallery. At this stage we have estimated they may have up to 80 suitable works available that are of a public art gallery standard.

The gallery can display 300 historical works in one hang which means up to 200 historical works will have to come from the city’s collection at the Christchurch Art Gallery where there are a total of 600 oil paintings and 300 watercolours in the historical collection. The remaining small number could possibly come from private collections and also the other public galleries in Auckland, Te Papa and Dunedin but it is very difficult today to borrow art works from other public galleries so not many will be available.

As I have mentioned before the Museum’s deputy Director, Sarah Murray, has begun supervising their work on how they are going to run the gallery beginning with looking on their own collection and also discussing their borrowing of works from the Christchurch Art Gallery. I am pleased to be able to say that the initial discussions seem to have gone well and I am hoping I can before long have further discussions with her as her work progresses.

In the meantime, I have come across another of the city’s foundation paintings. These were the paintings which initially established the city’s art collection from gifts from the Canterbury Society of Arts to the McDougall Art Gallery when it opened in 1932. I had no idea this one existed.

Evening Glow 1919 oil on canvas Grace Butler (1886-1962)

purchased by and presented by the Canterbury Society of Arts 1932 for the opening of the McDougall Art Gallery. It is yet another beautiful painting in the city’s collection which has not been seen for 20 years. It was in the original hang when the Christchurch Art Gallery opened in 2003 and not seen since 2007. It is outrageous that the Council is allowing the staff at the Gallery to deny the viewing public access to so much of the city’s historical art. It is currently in storage.

Grace Butler was a New Zealand born artist who painted widely in the Canterbury mountains especially around Arthurs Pass.

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 24 August 2026

10/08/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

Our petition has crept up this week to 1395 with one petitioner saying they can remember how much they used to love the gallery as a child and asking how on earth did it ever become leased to the Museum? A good question and another story!

The news this week was an article in the Press on Friday 7 August discussing a report by the Taxpayers Union on the value of all the city’s publicly held art works which they estimated at $164m – the third highest in the country. This compares with the figure of $60m I have used for the historical collection currently held at the Christchurch Art Gallery. The Taxpayers Union have said in their report that the city’s ratepayers have unknowingly become the owners of the third largest collection in the country and have asked the question whether it has delivered back to them that dollar value of worth. The Director of the Gallery, Blair Jackson, in reply was quoted as saying most of the works have been donated by generous citizens and the value of the city’s art was beyond its financial value and instead is in its cultural, educational, social and economic benefits.

While most people would presumably agree with him, what he didn’t mention is that he and his staff show very little of the historical collection to the public and instead mostly extreme contemporary art. So, the ratepayers and the remaining viewing public are getting very little value from the city’s art because they can’t see it. It’s in storage! Really the arrogance of these people is beyond belief.

In case you are wondering how this could possibly happen I have already explained it is possible due to the way the Council have decided to run the Gallery. Very simply they have laid down certain guidelines in their Long Term Plan that the management has to meet in respect to how the collection is displayed but these do not necessarily relate to what type of art they end up displaying. For example, one is to do with showing art forms which cater for the different social segments of the city’s population. But they do not relate to the balance of art works as between contemporary art and historical art and Council will not interfere with what art the staff actually displays. This explains how it is possible for the most valuable historical works not to be on permanent display.

But hopefully this will all come to an end when the McDougall reopens. There will be no reason then why the best historical works can’t all go back to where they came from and be put on permanent display. There will be plenty of room available as it can display 300 historical works in one hang. And our petition has shown this is where our art lovers wish to see their historical art displayed.

And here is another of the best works from Canterbury Museum’s collection which they have earmarked to display in the McDougall when it opens. It is a watercolour as are many of the other works held by the Museum. Watercolours generally can only be displayed for six months at a time before being stored again in darkness which involves framing each time they are hung.

Akaroa Harbour seen from Barry’s Bay Nicholas Chevalier (1828-1902) water colour on paper mounted on board Canterbury Museum collection. Chevalier was born in St Petersburg Russia and painted widely in Australia and New Zealand. His works are held in a number of galleries in Australia.

The McDougall has now been leased to Canterbury Museum for 50 years under a lease agreement which does not specify that it should be used only to display the city’s historical art from all possible available sources. This lease agreement has dishonoured the terms of Robert McDougall’s 1928 gift of the gallery to the art loving citizens of Christchurch which was for the city’s own collection. What this means is that how it is used in future could depend to some extent on the views of the future Director and staff of the Museum. If they wish to go off at a tangent and start using it for Museum purposes rather than as an art gallery for the city, the Council is unlikely to stop them just as they have not stopped the staff at the Christchurch Art Gallery from only displaying contemporary art.

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.

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 10 August 2026

05/08/2026

Save the McDougall Campaign

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Hello everyone,

I am sorry for the delay in my latest posting which is due to my having problems in logging into Facebook which I hope I have now solved with the help of a computer expert. Logging in has now become more difficult due to protections they have put in place to protect account holders.

Our petition this week has moved on very slowly to 1393 with signatories saying how they used to love the gallery and the beautiful paintings. It is sad that all these memories that people have are from so long ago. The gallery was in effect closed in 2002 when the city’s collection was transferred to the Christchurch Art Gallery in 2002 in preparation for its opening in 2003. It was then used by Canterbury Museum on occasions for a few inappropriate displays until the earthquakes in 2011 when it was closed to the public. It was not damaged in the quakes but had to be earthquake strengthened in accordance with the Council’s requirements for all public buildings. But it was then leased in 2021 to Canterbury Museum for 50 years and became included in the Museum’s redevelopment project which has delayed it’s reopening even more. The Museum project together with the Gallery is not due to be finished until 2029. The Gallery by then would have been unused to display art for 27 years – a whole generation!

However, the Council is spending $24.5m on it to earthquake strengthen it and provide base isolation and deepen the basement and other improvements.

The news this week was that the Council on Friday 24 July asked six local Members of Parliament to a meeting to encourage them to ask the Government to reconsider their request for them to meet the Council’s $15m pledge towards both the Cathedral and Museum projects which the Government decided against in their recent budget. After the meeting Councillor Sam MacDonald was quoted as saying he did not know whether he had persuaded any politicians to support additional funding for either project but as it was election year parties needed to consider what they could offer Christchurch voters. As far as the Museum project is concerned, we will probably have to wait until after the election before we receive another assessment of the financial state of the project including any further cost increases.

Having in my last posting talked about Robert McDougall’s biography I thought it might be interesting to mention a third painting that he gave the Gallery that I have always thought is of a very high standard. It is the End of the Chapter by George Paul Chalmers who was one of the most important Scottish artists of his time and painted many significant portraits. However, The End of the Chapter is intended as an allegory, representing the idea of a life lived rather than any specific individual. The elderly man is placed within a dark interior; light enters the scene and is reflected up from the book to illuminate the face of the reader. Chalmers expresses something existential through his use of chiaroscuro, the contrast of light and dark, which here provides a contemplative mood and suggests an intimate internal dialogue.

The McDougall has now been leased to Canterbury Museum for 50 years under a lease agreement which does not specify that it should be used only to display the city’s historical art from all possible available sources. This lease agreement has dishonoured the terms of Robert McDougall’s 1928 gift of the gallery to the art loving citizens of Christchurch which was for the city’s own collection. What this means is that how it is used in future could depend to some extent on the views of the future Director and staff of the Museum. If they wish to go off at a tangent and start using it for Museum purposes rather than as an art gallery for the city, the Council is unlikely to stop them just as they have not stopped the staff at the Christchurch Art Gallery from only displaying contemporary art.

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.

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 5 August 2026

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