COLIN LOVELL-SMITH'S artistic output and reputation as a painter suffered partly as a result of ongoing health problems from war injuries and partly because of his administrative responsi- bilities at the Canterbury College School of Art and the Canterbury Society of Arts. However, the quality of his painting - he was a consummate technician - was not compromised, as evidenced by Canterbury garden.

Probably dating from the late 1920s to the early 1930s, according to art historian Neil Roberts, the subject of this painting is most likely to be the home and garden of one of the Lovell- Smith family. Neither the cottage nor the woman can be identified but one possible candidate is Kate Lovell-Smith, formerly the suffragist Kate Sheppard, who married Colin's father William in 1925 at the age of 78. (William died in 1929 and Kate in 1934). However, she lived next door to Colin Lovell-Smith on Riccarton Road and her house was not a cottage. The Lovell-Smith family owned and lived in a number of properties in Riccarton, to the west of central Christchurch, which was still a rural area in the 1930s. It is possible that this is the painting Lovell- Smith called The elderberry tree, exhibited at the CA in 1938, because the tree with white blossom, which could be an elderberry, is in the centre of the composition and is the focal point for the path and flowerbed.

Location and occupant aside, there is plenty in the painting to have attracted the artist's interest. Overall the scene is uniformly lit by bright sunlight, including the flowers and blossom on the central tree, and the principal forms the house and large trees -- stand out crisply against the mostly clear sky. The flowers are deftly flicked on with one or two brushstrokes. There are also enough shadows to give variety and contrast to the surface and to emphasise depth.

• THE PAINTED GARDEN IN NEW ZEALAND ART
• Christopher Johnstone 2008