Story: Nelson region

This scene of tobacco fields at Pangatōtara in the Motueka River valley was painted by Doris Lusk in 1943. Lusk was one of several artists who worked as seasonal labourers in the region during the 1940s. She worked on this painting while staying with Anne and Colin McCahon in the summer of 1942–43. In the foreground are hop kilns. Lusk and McCahon went sketching together and swapped the resulting paintings. Lusk gave McCahon this painting, and he gave her one which looked up the valley in the opposite direction.