Frances Hodgkins

Frances Mary Hodgkins (28 April 1869 – 13 May 1947) was a New Zealand painter chiefly of landscape and still life, and for a short period was a designer of textiles. She was born and raised in New Zealand, but spent most of her working life in England. She is considered one of New Zealand's most prestigious and influential painters, although it is the work from her life in Europe, rather than her home country, on which her reputation rests.[1]

Frances Hodgkins

Life

Hodgkins was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1869, the daughter of Rachel Owen Parker and W. M. Hodgkins, a lawyer, amateur painter, and a leading figure in the city's art circles.[2]

As a girl she and her sister, Isabel (later Field) attended Braemar House, a private girls' secondary school; both sisters demonstrated artistic talent early on and each became a successful landscape painter in her own right.[2] Hodgkins first exhibited rural genre scenes and portraits in 1890 at art societies in Christchurch and Dunedin. In 1893, she became a student of Girolamo Nerli and painted numerous studies of female sitters, one of which earned her the New Zealand Academy of Arts' prize for painting from life in 1895 (Head of an Old Woman).[3] Hodgkin's Maori paintings are, like many by Ellen von Meyern and Gottfried Lindauer, associated with symbolic portraits of demure females with or without a child.[4] In 1895–96 she attended the Dunedin School of Art and subsequently became an art teacher, earning money to study in England.[3]

In 1901 Hodgkins left New Zealand for Europe, enrolling in art school in London but also travelling and painting in France, the Netherlands, Italy and Morocco in the company of friend and fellow artist Dorothy Kate Richmond; whom she described as "the dearest woman with the most beautiful face and expression. I am a lucky beggar to have her as a travelling companion."[5] While in Britain she intermittently met up with Margaret Stoddart, another expatiate artist.[6] In 1903, one of Hodgkins' watercolors from this period (Fatima) became the first work by a New Zealander to be hung "on the line" at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.[3]

Frances Hodgkins with her brother-in-law, William Field

She returned to New Zealand in 1903 and established a teaching studio in Wellington, where she held a joint exhibition with Richmond in 1904. Among her pupils was Edith Kate Bendall, lover of Katherine Mansfield. In the same year Hodgkins became engaged to a British man, T. Boughton Wilby, but the engagement was broken off and she returned to London in 1906 to pursue her artistic career.

In Europe, Hodgkins held her first solo show at the Paterson's Gallery in London in 1907 and moved to Paris in 1908. In 1910 she began teaching in Paris at Colarossi's academy as the first woman to be appointed instructor in the school.[7] She also founded the School for Water Color. During this time she exhibited numerous watercolors at the Paris salon and came in contact with Canadian artist, Emily Carr, whom she taught while working on seascapes at Concarneau in Brittany.

During World War I she spent some time in Zennor, Cornwall, where she worked with the Swansea painter, Cedric Morris, who painted her portrait in 1917.[8] She herself began to paint in oils in 1915.

In 1919, after the War, she went to France, where she was influenced by Matisse and Derain, but developed her own highly personal style, which made a strong impact at her one-person show in London at the Claridge Gallery in 1928. While in France she visited Nice in 1924 and there met Margaret Butler, a notable New Zealand sculptor.[9]

In 1925, Hodgkins started work as a fabric designer at the Calico Printers' Association (CPA) in Manchester and during her employment visited the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.[10]

From the late 1920s on her style came to embrace modernist hallmarks such as abstracted, simplified forms and a strong emphasis on colour values and relationships. Although she continued to paint people, her work from this period also evidences an interest in fusing conventions of landscape with still life painting. In 1929 she joined the Seven and Five Society and worked alongside younger artists including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore. In 1930, she "goaded" her friend Lucy Wertheim into opening her gallery in London to exhibit "artists who had not yet arrived".[11]

During the 1930s Hodgkins exhibited with many important London galleries and gained a contract from the Lefevre Gallery to produce work for a full-scale exhibition every second year. In 1931 she became a painting companion of fellow New Zealand artist Maude Burge and painted still lifes at Burge's Villa in the garden terrace. Saint-Tropez.[12] Her experimentation with mixing artistic genres continued, resulting in paintings that conflate still life with self-portraiture to sidestep physical appearance in self-representation. In 1939 she was invited to represent Britain at the 1940 Venice Biennale, but wartime travel restrictions meant that her work could not be transported to Venice.[13] She was highly considered among British avant-garde society and by the later stages of her career was known as a key figure in British Modernism.[14]

Because of World War II she spent the rest of her life in Britain. She continued to paint into her seventies, despite suffering from rheumatism and bronchitis. She died in Dorchester, Dorset on 13 May 1947. When she died she was regarded as one of Britain's leading artists.[13] In 1948 Myfanwy Evans (later Piper) wrote a concise book entitled Frances Hodgkins, as part of the 'Penguin Modern Painters' series, and the two were the only woman author and woman artist in the series of eighteen books.

Fellowship

The Frances Hodgkins Fellowship, established in 1962 at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, is named after her.

Works in collections
Title Year Medium Gallery no. Gallery Location
Portrait of a girl in a sunbonnet circa 1895 Pastel and gouache on paper 80/154 Hocken Collections Dunedin, New Zealand
Māori woman and child 1900 Watercolour 1936-0012-62 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
The market place, San Remo, Italy 1902 Watercolour 1950-0005-001 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
A Dutch girl circa 1907 Watercolour 1936-0012-50 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
Le Reveil (mother and child) circa 1912 Watercolour 1955/31 Auckland Art Gallery Auckland, New Zealand
Loveday and Ann: Two Women with a Basket of Flowers 1915 Oil on canvas N05456 Tate London, United Kingdom
The Edwardians circa 1918 Oil on canvas 1969/13 Auckland Art Gallery Auckland, New Zealand
Mrs Hellyer circa 1919 Oil on canvas PLYMG.1969.4 Plymouth Museums Galleries Archives Plymouth, United Kingdom
Portrait of Arthur Lett-Haines 1920 Oil on canvas 2006-0030-1 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
Double Portrait 1922 Oil on canvas 73/96 Hocken Collections Dunedin, New Zealand
The fair by the sea 1927(?) Watercolour 1974-0009-1 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
Flowers in a Vase circa 1928 Oil on canvas 4513 Government Art Collection London, United Kingdom
Still Life circa 1929 Oil on canvas EASTG 1260 Towner Art Gallery Eastbourne, United Kingdom
Still Life: Eggs, Tomatoes and Mushrooms circa 1929 Oil on canvas H1940_92 Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove Brighton, United Kingdom
Cedric Morris (Man with Macaw) 1930 Oil on canvas EASTG 1262 Towner Art Gallery Eastbourne, United Kingdom
Flatford Mill 1930 Oil on canvas N05978 Tate London, United Kingdom
Flatford Mill, Suffolk 1930 Oil on canvas EASTG 1263 Towner Art Gallery Eastbourne, United Kingdom
Wings over Water 1930 Oil on canvas N06237 Tate London, United Kingdom
Berries and Laurel circa 1930 Oil on canvas 1982/46/2 Auckland Art Gallery Auckland, New Zealand
Cut melons circa 1931 Oil on cardboard 1980-0063-2 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
Fish 1931 Watercolour P2564 British Council United Kingdom
Sabrina's Garden circa 1932 Oil on canvas K1669 Bristol Museum & Art Gallery Bristol, United Kingdom
Wings over Water circa 1932 Oil on canvas LEEAG.PA.1940.0022 Leeds Art Gallery Leeds, United Kingdom
Spanish Peasants 1934 Oil on plywood CHCPH 1017-14 Pallant House Gallery Chichester, United Kingdom
Still life: Self-portrait circa 1935 Oil on panel 1999-0017-1 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
The Weir circa 1935 Oil on canvas 2846 Glasgow Museums Glasgow, Scotland
Double Portrait No.2 (Katherine and Anthony West) 1937 Oil on canvas 1967-0006-1 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
Tanks, Barrels and Drums 1937 Oil on canvas 6752 Government Art Collection London, United Kingdom
Houses and Outhouses, Purbeck 1938 Oil on canvas P75 British Council Collection London, United Kingdom
The Painted Chest 1938 Oil on panel OS00094 William Evans Bequest, Bangor University Bangor, Wales
Cheviot Farm circa 1938 Oil on canvas 1947.445 Manchester Art Gallery Manchester, United Kingdom
Broken pottery 1939 Watercolour 1971-0044-1 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
Landscape circa 1939 Gouache on paper 3561 Government Art Collection London, United Kingdom
Purbeck Courtyard, Morning 1944 Oil on canvas 1362 Southampton City Art Gallery Southampton, United Kingdom
  • Still life eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms
  • Spanish peasants
  • Mrs. Hellyer
  • Flowers in a vase
  • Cheviot farm

Notes
  1. "Auckland City Art Gallery : Paintings and Drawings by Frances Hodgkins" (PDF). Aucklandartgallery.com. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  2. Gill, Linda. "Hodgkins, Frances Mary". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  3. Taonga, New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu. "Hodgkins, Frances Mary". www.teara.govt.nz. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  4. Leonard Bell (1 October 2013). Colonial Constructs: European Images of the Maori, 1840-1914. Auckland University Press. pp. 367–. ISBN 978-1-86940-640-0.
  5. Archived 25 December 2005 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Dawson, Bee (1999). Lady painters : the flower painters of early New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Viking. p. 119. ISBN 0670886513.
  7. "Biography of Frances Hodgkins". Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  8. "Sir Cedric Morris, Bt". Tate. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  9. Stocker, Mark. "Margaret Mary Butler". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
  10. Niederman, Samantha (2019). Frances Hodgkins. London: Eiderdown Books. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-9160416-1-5. OCLC 1108751366.
  11. "Mrs Lucy Wertheim Ecouraging Young Artists". The Times. London. 15 December 1971.
  12. http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-PlaNine-t1-body-d1-d201.html
  13. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. "Biography of Frances Hodgkins – Collections Online – Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa". Collections.tepapa.govt.nz. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  14. Eastmond, Elizabeth (December 1999). "Metaphor and the Self-Portrait: Frances Hodgkins's Self-Portrait: Still Life and Still Life: Self-Portrait". Art History. 22 (5): 656–675. doi:10.1111/1467-8365.00181. ISSN 0141-6790.

References

Further reading
  • Iain Buchanan, Michael Dunn, and Elizabeth Eastmond Frances Hodgkins: Paintings and Drawings (2002, Auckland University Press) ISBN 978-1869402631
  • Joanne Drayton, Frances Hodgkins: A Private Viewing (2005, Godwit, Auckland) ISBN 1-86962-117-4
  • Elizabeth Eastmond and Merimeri Penfold, Women and the Arts in New Zealand. Forty Works: 1936–86 (1986, Penguin Books) ISBN 978-0140092349
  • Catherine Hammond & Mary Kisler, eds Frances Hodgkins : European Journeys (2019, Auckland University Press & Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki) ISBN 9-781-86940-893-0
  • Mary Kisler, Finding Frances Hodgkins, (2019, Massey University Press) ISBN 978-0-9951029-7-2
  • Anne Kirker, New Zealand Women Artists: A Survey of 150 Years (1986, Craftsman House) ISBN 976-8097-30-2
  • E. H. McCormick, The Expatriate (1954, New Zealand University Press, Wellington)
  • Samantha Niederman, Frances Hodgkins (2019, Eiderdown Books) ISBN 978-1916-0416-15
  • Emily-Jane Hills Orford, The Creative Spirit: Stories of 20th Century Artists (2008, Ottawa: Baico Publishing) ISBN 978-1-897449-18-9
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