FRANCES HODGKINS THE EXPATRIATE YEARS 1901 - 1947
Frances Hodgkins (1869 - 1947) is regarded as one of New Zealand’s most renowned artists. Her works capture the spirit of an era greatly influenced by Impressionism and the beginnings of en plein air painting, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism and two World Wars. With a professional life that spanned fifty-six years, Hodgkins was one of the foremost artists of her generation. During her time in Britain she became one of the leaders of the English avant-garde during the 1930s and 1940s, and was one of the first New Zealand-born artists to achieve such stature.
Frances Hodgkins at her studio in the village of Corfe Castle, Dorset. Felix Man Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.
Born in Dunedin on the 28 April 1869 to the distinguished watercolourist William Matthew Hodgkins and his Australian wife, Rachel Owen Parker, Frances Hodgkins’s artistic education continued outside the sphere of influence of her family. In 1893 she studied with the renowned expatriate artist Girolamo Pieri Nerli, (1860 -1926) who encouraged her in portraiture and figure painting, and then from 1895-96 she attended Dunedin School of Art.
Having left New Zealand for Europe in 1901, Hodgkins finally settled in England in 1913, where she spent most of her time in London. She took it upon herself to further her career in Europe and Britain by holding regular exhibitions of her work and becoming one of the first female teachers at the prestigious Académie Colarossi in Paris. Hodgkins toured around Brittany with her group of students, sketching in the small, picturesque villages of Concarneau, Le Havre and St Valery-sur-Somme. It was on these teaching trips that Hodgkins met and befriended some of her most loyal companions, one of the most significant of which was Jane Saunders. Hodgkins first met Saunders and her partner, Hannah Ritchie, in 1911 at Concarneau and friends such as this pair, continually supported her throughout her life. Saunders and Ritchie also collected a number of major works by Hodgkins, some of which are exhibited in this collection. Hodgkins continued to paint and teach and hold regular sketching classes in France until the outbreak of the First World War (1914 -1918). Hodgkins spent the war years based in St Ives, Cornwall, where fellow artists Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett Haines became her close friends. After the war Hodgkins continued her teaching practice as well as working fervently in order to be able to exhibit at the Salon d’Automne in Paris. In 1927 Hodgkins exhibited a work with the New English Art Club, where she caught the attention of the prominent London dealer Arthur Howell, who subsequently offered Hodgkins a contract. This in turn led to Hodgkins association with the Lefevre and Leicester Galleries - a professional relationship that was to last until the end of her life. During the Second World War (1939 -1945) Hodgkins was in her 70’s and less resilient both physically and emotionally to the strains imposed by war. Consequently, she moved to a small studio at Bradford-on-Tone in Somerset where Geoffrey Gorer’s cottage was made available to her. Hodgkins continued to work ardently during this period and as a result she experienced the unexpected success of an exhibition held in 1940. This marked the turning point in Hodgkins career and from that time on her paintings were increasingly sought after. Following on from her success, Hodgkins was chosen in the spring of that year, to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale. Further accolades followed in 1942 when she was honored with a Civil List pension for her services to art and in 1944 when the Tate Britain bought one of her works. This was undoubtedly a highpoint in her career. In November 1946, to enthusiastic critical acclaim, the Lefevre Gallery held a retrospective exhibition of Hodgkins works. The exhibition included 64 paintings and 17 drawings ranging from 1902 to 1946 and the exhibition received a warm and positive response from the London press. Today, Frances Hodgkins is hailed as one of New Zealand’s most preeminent artists and her work is held in consistently high regard. Her works can be found in the permanent collections of most major New Zealand public galleries and in numerous British galleries including the Tate Britain, the Victoria & Albert Museum and The Manchester City Art Gallery.
FRANCES HODGKINS THE EXPATRIATE YEARS 1901 - 1947
“I feel that if I had known what was before me, I should never have had the courage to begin.”
Written by Jonathan Gooderham & Grace Alty Edited by Jemma Field ISBN: 978-0-473-20889-9 Published April 2012
Jonathan Grant Galleries 280 Parnell Road P.O. Box 37-673 Auckland 1151, New Zealand T: (64) 9 308 9125 F: (64) 9 303 1071 E-mail: jg@jgg.co.nz
www.jonathangrantgalleries.com
Mother and Daughter Preparing Flowers c. 1901/02 Watercolour 29 x 22 cm Signed with initials FH lower right Provenance: Private collection, Auckland Literature: Joanne Drayton, Frances Hodgkins: A Private Viewing (Auckland, 2005), p. 63. Illustrated Patisserie Taffats, Rue de l’Apport, Dinan. 30th September 1902
‘Those market scenes are the outcome of great mental strain, with nerves at a tension & eyes bewildered with an ever moving crowd & ones senses all alert & linx eyed for effects & relations one thing to another’.1 Between 1901 and 1903, during her first trip to Europe, Frances Hodgkins joined the Penzance-based artist Norman Garstin’s sketching classes in Caudebec-en-Caux in 1901 and Dinan in 1902. There she met and befriended fellow artists; Maud Nickalls, Mrs Ashington, Peter Moffat Linder and Norman Garstin and his wife. Partaking in the art school afforded Hodgkins, for the first time, the opportunity to immerse herself in her art, unhampered by the distractions of family, friends, domestic life and teaching. Her paintings from this period reveal her interest in the local street scenes of villages such as Caudebec, Honfleur and Dinan. Frances Hodgkins believed that in order to sell works she had to extend her repertoire to include en plein air paintings. She assumed that this technique would attract more buyers for her works, thus, on her first trip to France she ventured into the open countryside and local markets to capture these vibrant locations. Her letters contain many references to the difficulties of painting out of doors. She felt that a lady artist at work in small town market places excited local curiosity and comment. These difficulties added their own unique influence to Hodgkins’s work. A rapid fluidity in her brushwork is visible in her watercolours of this period; as if she was trying to capture a multitude of colours, light configurations, shadows and people in a single swift brushstroke.2 The present watercolour, Mother and Daughter Preparing Flowers from 1901/2, features a mother and child at a market stall, enlivened by the vibrant colours of the market place. Manipulating the wet-on-wet painting technique, Hodgkins cloaks the figures in an air of mystery as she leaves their forms undefined and offers only the briefest of allusions to the identity of a peasant mother and child. Between 1902 and 1903, Frances Hodgkins painted numerous watercolour scenes of the market stalls in Dinan and Arles, which she subsequently sent back to New Zealand for exhibition. Similar paintings to the present piece are held in the permanent collections of Theomin Gallery, Dunedin, the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, the Auckland Art Gallery and the Museum of New Zealand: Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
Market scene in Concarneau, Brittany, France. Katherine Ritchie Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.
1 2
Linda Gill (ed.), Letters of Frances Hodgkins (Auckland, 1993), Letter to Isabel Field, p.138. Joanna Drayton, Frances Hodgkins: A Private viewing (Auckland, 2005), p.63.
Still Life with Fish c. 1910
Black chalk and watercolour on paper, 52 x 58 cm Provenance: Private collection, Montfort-l’Amaury, France Mathieu Néouze, Paris Concarneau. 28th July 1910
‘I eat at a little café where I get large platefuls of soup & sardines & crabs & veal & beefsteaks very raw & red & nearly always green peas stewed with onions & lots of sugar which taste much better than they sound- all washed down with copious quantities of red wine & very sour cider…’1 In 2007, twenty previously unknown watercolours by Frances Hodgkins were purchased by the Auckland Art Gallery from the Parisian art dealer Mathieu Néouze.2 Néouze and his associate, who discovered the collection at Monfort-l’Amaury, retained one work each for their own private collections: Tunny Boats in the Harbour, Concarneau c.1910 and Still Life with Fish. In 2009 these two valuable watercolours were located in Paris by Jonathan Grant Galleries, where they were promptly purchased and returned to Auckland. These two important paintings are now offered for sale for the first time on the New Zealand market. The present painting, Still Life with Fish that was painted around 1910 is most likely to have been painted as a ‘teaching demonstration’ for one of Hodgkins’s Concarneau art classes. During 1910, Hodgkins chose the small fishing village of Concarneau as the location for her summer school. The town was a well known, but still unspoilt haunt for artists and it attracted well-established French painters, students and amateurs alike. In this idyllic location Hodgkins found the ideal subject matter, not only for her own artwork, but also for her eager students. She later wrote of her teaching experience from Paris on the 27th of November 1911 saying:
‘My Class is a real going concern now & a great success. I am refusing pupils on account of lack of space. I can only take 16 altogether – 8 in each class as the Studio is not large. Also I have several private pupils at a guinea an hour’.3 Hodgkins’s Still Life with Fish is an excellent example of the artist’s working methods and clearly displays the influence of the watercolourist Arthur Melville (1858-1904). Hodgkins greatly admired Melville’s exotic market scenes and still lifes of food and pottery, in which he used a saturated palette and a loose, fluid line. In her Concarneau works, Hodgkins utilised the ‘wet-on-wet’ technique - a technique that she developed in Europe, in order to bring her watercolours to life. This method saw a flurry of line, broad washes of colour and often large expanses of untouched paper that serve to highlight the confidence of the composition and the rapidity with which these works were executed. An example of this is seen in Still Life with Fish, which possesses a vibrant immediacy as though the work has only just been finished. As a result, the work is palpably real and is a supreme example of Hodgkins’s skill at capturing fleeting moments in time. Hodgkins’s focus on the independent forms of the serving utensils and fish combines to produce an almost abstract patterned effect. Combined with her use of multiple viewpoints and tilting planes, the watercolour acknowledges the two-dimensional reality of the paper and in doing so pays homage to the father of modern art and the abstracted still life: Paul Cézanne.
The Hotel des Voyageurs, Concarneau, where Frances Hodgkins stayed with her students. Katherine Ritchie Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.
Gill, p.254, Letter to her mother, Rachel Hodgkins. Exhibition: Frances Hodgkins Colour and Light, Auckland Art Gallery, November 2011 – March 2012. 3 Gill, p.258. 1 2
Tunny Boats in the Harbour, Concarneau c. 1910 Black chalk and watercolour on paper, 59 x 60 cm Provenance: Private collection, Montfort-l’Amaury, France Mathieu Néouze, Paris Concarneau. 3rd October 1910
‘ . . . I have been very busy getting off my 6 watercolours to Paris. Did I tell you I had been asked to send up 4, then 6 . . . & the fear of death was upon me in case I couldn’t get them finished, having ordered frames etc. . . . & now they are off to frame (& fame) I hope’.1 Tunny Boats in the Harbour, Concarneau c.1910 was painted at a pivotal time in Frances Hodgkins’s career. Between 1908 and 1912 she made a determined bid to position her art and her reputation in Paris. Besides providing a stimulating environment, France provided Hodgkins with the varied light, colours and subject matter that she wished to translate into her art. Indeed, Hodgkins’s awareness of French art, and the considerable amount of time that she spent in France, was a formative influence on her identity as a painter. While living in Paris, Hodgkins became inundated with requests for tutoring, and in the winter of 1909-10, against the wishes of her mother, she cancelled her return trip to New Zealand in order to teach at one of the foremost private academies in Paris: the Académie Colarossi. It is notable that Hodgkins was one of the first female artists to teach at this prestigious institution. With the coming of the summer sketching season, she moved with her class of pupils to Brittany, and eventually settled in the sheltered fishing village of Concarneau. The boats and harbour of Concarneau were popular subjects for artists at the time and regularly featured in the paintings of the Fauves and the Newlyn School. It is likely that the Newlyn artist, Norman Garstin, introduced Hodgkins to Concarneau. Before arriving at Concarneau, Hodgkins had painted a number of works in Europe that featured fishing vessels - several of which can be found in the collection of the Auckland Art Gallery and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. In Tunny Boats in the Harbour, Concarneau, Hodgkins’s animates the composition through the dynamic juxtaposition of the two boats in the foreground. This dynamism is cleverly tempered by a predominantly sombre palette that works to produce a piece of notable calm and visual interest. The visible lines of Hodgkins’s brush serve to emphasise the flatness of the picture plane as they form a geometric patterned effect, which is characteristic of her watercolours at this time. Tunny Boats in the Harbour, Concarneau and other such works are compelling in the way in which they simultaneously portray the ebullience of the water and the heaviness of the sea vessels.
Frances Hodgkins sketching at Concarneau. E. H. McCormick Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.
1
Gill, p.255. Letter to her mother, Rachel Hodgkins.
Baby with Abacus
Oil on canvas, 44 x 44 cm Signed Frances Hodgkins lower left Provenance: Ferner Gallery, Auckland Private Collection, Auckland Wharf Studio, St Ives, March 30th 1918.
‘Truly living is a fine art these days. Yesterday I sold a 12gn. Baby. Item: Paint more babies! In fact keep the cradle full . . . ‘1 The mother and child theme is one of the most time-honoured subjects in the canon of art history. Hodgkins own mother and baby works were first seen as early as 1894. In these early works Hodgkins depicted New Zealand subject matter in works such as Baby on Beach, 1894, and Maori & Baby, 1899.2 Notably, babies were also a common theme during the French Impressionist movement and Hodgkins would undoubtedly have been familiar with the work of Mary Cassatt (1844 -1926) and Lucien Simon (1861-1941), who painted scenes of mothers with babies in intimate domestic scenes. Hodgkins’s own mother and baby works evolved out of a response to the French Impressionists and to the work of the French Intimiste painters Vuillard (1868-1940) and Bonnard (1867-1947). There are two distinct periods in Hodgkins’s oeuvre when she seems to have been enchanted by the subject of babies. In 1908 she was asked by Mr John Baillie, who owned a gallery in Bond Street, London, to contribute a work to his ‘Children’s Exhibition’ that was scheduled to open on the 1st of January 1909. Hodgkins wrote of the exhibition to her mother saying that the show was to ‘consist of pictures of babies & children & ought to be rather charming’.3 Hodgkins later returned to the theme of babies in 1918 when she sold a work depicting a baby for 12 guineas. The following year, at her exhibition at Grafton Galleries in London, Hodgkins donated half of the proceeds of the sale of her painting Lullaby to the Child Welfare Fund. The present painting Baby With Abacus is a brilliant example of Hodgkins’s ‘baby’ works, but is also a rare work in that it has been painted in oils. Like Hodgkins’s other paintings that depict babies such as Summer c.1912 in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, the composition is dominated by the baby’s head, while the rest of the baby’s body is not clearly defined. In Baby With Abacus, Hodgkins pays particular attention to form, echoing the circular shape of the abacus beads in the roundness of the baby’s face, the plump rosy cheeks, round button nose and the large dark circular eyes. For the most part, Hodgkins uses a subdued palette, which works to impart an air of gentility to her young sitter. Touches of pink are used to highlight the healthy glow of the baby and to etch out the floral expanse of fabric that is draped across the baby. Hodgkins’s careful attention to the unity of form, combined with her harmonious use of colour, results in a painting that is lively and animated yet simultaneously endearing.
Gill, p.329. Letter to Will Field. E.H. McCormick, Works of Frances Hodgkins in New Zealand (Auckland, 1954), p.131. 3 Gill, p.239. Letter to Rachel Hodgkins. 1 2
Cassis Quarryman and Wife c. 1921 Black chalk, 32 x 45 cm Signed Frances Hodgkins lower centre Titled Cassis Quarryman and Wife verso
Provenance: Karl Hagedorn RBA, NEAC (1889-1969) Private collection, Somerset, UK. Cassis, nr. Marseilles, France. 21st December 1920
‘The place (Cassis) is off the beaten track, not very far from Marseilles, on the coast, much frequented by artists on account of the landscape…Winston Churchill his wife and suite have been here lately, he for a fortnights painting.’1 After leaving New Zealand in 1901, the first group of monochromatic works that appear in Hodgkins’s oeuvre are related to Cassis, where she spent six weeks during the winter of 1920-21. Hodgkins’s drawings from this period were completed in black chalk and were of uniform size. Two examples of her chalk drawings are currently held in public galleries; Cassis c.1920 - 1930 in the Auckland City Art Gallery and Landscape in the South of France in the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester. Frances Hodgkins left England for France in 1920. On her arrival, she immersed herself in the local culture, enjoying the fine French food and wine. After a week of relaxation she moved south to the small town of Cassis, in the hope of meeting up with close friends, Cedric Morris and Lett Haines. Arriving in the small fishing port, Hodgkins discovered that they had already departed, but the magnificent amphitheatre created by the hills surrounding Cassis drew her in, and she decided to stay. By chance, Hodgkins met a fellow New Zealander, Jean Campbell, and joined her on her vineyard, Fontcreuse. There she enjoyed daily walks over the rugged hills of the region and sketched constantly as she went. This, Hodgkins realised, was Cézanne country - a challenge that she met in a series of black chalk drawings, which are notable for their boldness and strength of design - in what was for her, a new medium. Hodgkins’s chalk works express her assuredness in her own skill and reveal an element of experimentation in terms of both subject matter and form. Hodgkins intended her chalk drawings to not be just picturesque examples of the local landscape and people, but to be autonomous artworks that would also serve as inspiration for larger paintings. They were undoubtedly popular and the present drawing, Cassis Quarryman and Wife c. 1921, bares a strikingly close resemblance to her later work, Spanish Husband and Wife c.1925. Hodgkins hoped to sell the set of chalk drawings in London, writing to her sister Rachel on the 4th of February 1921 to say that she was
‘…sending off my Cassis set of drawings to Mr Frank Rutter to see if he can arrange to show them in London…’2 Cassis Quarryman and Wife is executed with a paucity of line that underscores Hodgkins’s masterful draughtsmanship. In the present work and the related piece, Spanish Husband and Wife, held in the Auckland Art Gallery, Hodgkins utilises the chequered patterning of the fabric to draw attention to the female figures and to provide a central anchor for the composition. The use of bold patches of shading works to accentuate the landscape of the faces while Hodgkins’s ability to indicate spatial recession by hinting at the layering of the couple is testament to her skill and understanding of the fundamentals of the drawing practice.
1 2
Gill, p.351. Letter to Rachel Hodgkins. Ibid.
Burford High Street, Oxfordshire c. 1922 Watercolour and pencil, 10.5 x 13 cm Signed F Hodgkins lower right
Provenance: Collection of Miss D J (Jane) Saunders and Miss A M (Elizabeth) Shaw. Thence by descent Private collection, Auckland Exhibited: London, Tate Gallery: Frances Hodgkins Memorial Exhibition, 1952. Lent by Jane Saunders. Studio, St Lawrence’s St, Burford, Oxon. 13th January 1922
‘…[The Studio] is a lovely old barn. I have bought 8 old chairs for 10/-… an old counter for a table, an iron bedstead & various adjuncts including a black kitten, young of Mrs. Plosh of Park Farm, Barrington. It takes plenty of nerve to climb my ladder – a handrail will be necessary if visitors are not to break the neck in the semi-darkness of a winter afternoon.... No more now Dearest. It is too cold. You must walk seven miles at least if you want to get thawed – so I am off – I go [in] the afternoon round by Grt. Barrington by the low road & back by the High.’1 In 1922 Frances Hodgkins moved to the Cotswolds town of Burford about twenty miles from Oxford.2 There she rented a lovely old barn, which was to serve both as a studio and her living quarters. She was determined to make the barn into a ‘Hodgkins centre’, where pupils could rally round and immerse themselves in art. At the same time she could not believe that she was settling down again in England after shaking its dust off her feet only a year before. Hodgkins continued to hold regular art classes and students soon flocked to the small town of Burford. Hodgkins related her experience of teaching to her close friends, Jane Saunders and Hannah Ritchie in a letter written from her studio on the 24th of June 1922:
‘Burford is a deadly place for stranded artists when it rains. I have had them all very heavily on my chest. A friend living at Taynton, 1 ½ miles away, has let me have the run of her house & garden while she is in London – so we have been tramping out there in the wet with our lunch & tea & painting flowers – of every description – a lovely rose garden with torrents of blossom from every tree.’3 The present watercolour, Burford High Street, Oxfordshire c. 1922, is a clear example of Hodgkins’s mature style, which she had developed by the 1920s. The naturalistic element is still present, but she has shifted her attention to focus on the reality of the picture plane, which takes precedence over the creation of a three-dimensional illusion. As such, the landscape has been completely flattened and divided into clear segments of contrasting colour. The success of the painting lies in Hodgkins’s mastery of subtle shifts in chromatic tonalities and the use of a fluid, gestural line, which works to unify the composition and to provide a harmonious balance.
Burford High Street c.1922
Burford High Street 2011
Gill, p.358. Letter to Rachel Hodgkins. The classification of the Cotswolds as an area of outstanding beauty has meant that the view that Hodgkins painted in 1922 remains virtually unchanged to this day, allowing it to still be clearly identified – as shown in the accompanying photographs. 3 Gill, p.363. Letter to Jane Saunders and Hannah Ritchie. 1 2
Lesson Demonstration, Burford c.1923
Watercolour and pencil, 12 x 18.5 cm Inscribed on mount Frances Hodgkins (Lesson Demonstration) Provenance: Collection of Miss D J (Jane) Saunders and Miss A M (Elizabeth) Shaw. Thence by descent. Studio, St.Lawrence’s Street, Burford, Oxon, 26th April 1923
‘I shall be most pleased to give you some coaching in the summer, or as soon after May 14th as you like. My Season starts then. My terms are 4 guineas a month a course of 12 demonstration lessons, or I can give you the course in a shorter time if desirable . . .’1 The Auckland Art Gallery holds a collection of Frances Hodgkins’s sketches, which are unique records of her working method and teaching technique. ‘Lesson Demonstrations’ were Hodgkins’s principal teaching method in her art classes and these works illustrate both the confident fluidity of her brushwork and her keen eye for the nuances of light and colour. Executed rapidly, pencil marks in Lesson Demonstration, Burford are still visible beneath the washes of colour. Hodgkins evidently sketched the significant landmarks in front of her with pencil and then applied swathes of loose, thin paint, which were allowed to bleed and merge in many areas. In transcribing the vista, all attention is given over to capturing the bare essential forms of the landscape and the chromatic variances of the scene so that the work consequently assumes an abstract quality. Hodgkins first met Jane Saunders and her partner Hannah Ritchie in 1911 at Corncarneau and the following year the pair (pictured below) joined Hodgkins’s art class at St Valery-sur-Somme. Saunders and Ritchie went on to become lifelong friends and supporters of the artist. Hodgkins’s own admiration of Saunders and Ritchie is clearly apparent in the affectionate letters that she wrote to them throughout her life, such as the letter from the 10th of January 1923 that reads:
‘You are two bricks to slave so hard on my behalf – I am grateful.... to a large extent I have lost my terror – thanks to you - & time I hope will prove that it pays to put me on my legs again & make me a busy useful woman again whose best work is ahead of her. You two girls have had the courage & imagination to do what other richer friends could have done twice over without turning a hair.’2 Hodgkins was continually supported by friends, such as Saunders and Ritchie, and she regularly received money, food parcels and commentaries on contemporary news and events from them. As a result of their continued friendship with Hodgkins, Saunders and Ritchie acquired a significant collection of her paintings, including some of her best-known works. In later years Saunders and Ritchie made generous donations of Hodgkins’s work to a number of art institutions including the Tate Gallery in London. In testament to her respect and esteem for the pair, Hodgkins painted a portrait of them which is currently held in the Pictorial Collection of the Hocken Library, Dunedin3.
Hannah Ritchie, Frances Hodgkins and Jane Saunders. Katherine Ritchie Collection ,Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.
Gill, p.370. Letter to Dorothy Selby. Ibid., p.368. 3 Double Portrait c. 1922-25. Hocken Library, Dunedin 1 2
The Sitting Room c. 1930 - 1931 Black chalk on paper, 30 x 30 cm Signed Frances Hodgkins lower centre
Exhibited: London: The Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond Street, January 1968. Private Collection, Canterbury, U.K. Sube Hotel, St Tropez, Var. 25th June 1931
‘But this last batch of a dozen drawings is good I think. Definitely it is summer weather now and one is at ones best.’1 Frances Hodgkins spent the year of 1930 preparing for her October exhibition at St George’s Gallery, London. She was, however, exhausted and in very low spirits. Hodgkins’s close friend, Lett Haines, arranged for her to go first to a cottage in St Osyth near Clacton-on-Sea and then later to a friend’s farm, Wise Follies, near the village of Wilmington in Sussex.2 It is here that Hodgkins again took up her drawing practice, focussing on the local villages and other still life subjects. Hodgkins’s preoccupation with conveying movement through line in her drawings originated in the early stages of her career. Her fixation with the still life genre continued on into the 1930’s where she was able to combine a series of separate still life objects as well as their surroundings in an effortless and graceful manner. Hodgkins’s later works proclaim her confidence and the apparent ease with which she was able to wield her pencil - charging it with the same interest that had fuelled her earlier explorations into colour. The curving lines that sweep across Hodgkins’s drawings invoke a sense of space and freedom, while also appearing to capture fleeting moments in time. In some instances, Hodgkins brought heterogeneous objects together, weaving a composition from items taken from her immediate environment instead of seeing them in abstract terms as she came to do in her later paintings. This idea is especially prevalent in the present charcoal drawing, The Sitting Room from 1930 - 1931. The work shares several similar key compositional elements with Pleasure Garden painted in 1932, which is held in the permanent collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery. As such, it is likely that The Sitting Room served as a preliminary drawing to Pleasure Garden. Similarities are seen in the design of the table and the curved armrest of the chair, in the right hand corner of The Sitting Room, which are then echoed in the Pleasure Garden. A similarity can also be drawn between the empty bottle and two glasses in The Sitting Room, and the undulating shapes of the wine bottle and glasses in the foreground of the painting in the Christchurch Art Gallery. Featuring an extremely complex composition, The Siting Room presents the viewer with numerous pieces of furniture, decorative objects, functional items and patterned fabrics that are all set within a small domestic space. Testament to Hodgkins’s proficiency as a draughtsman and her understanding of pictorial space, The Sitting Room is at once both frenetically busy and quietly calm. The absence of any human presence lends the work a calmative effect, which successfully offsets the busyness of the piece. In doing so, Hodgkins avoids the potential of overwhelming busyness due to the wealth of visual interest. While there is little attempt to show real distance in the work, each object is still given depth and solidity through careful shadowing, which imparts the scene with an empathic domesticity.
1 2
Gill, p.441. Letter to Dorothy Selby. Alexa Johnston, Frances Hodgkins: femme du monde (Dunedin, 2009), p.130.
Bodinnick, Cornwall c. 1931
Watercolour, 45 x 37 cm Signed Frances Hodgkins lower left Inscribed Bodinnick, Cornwall lower right Provenance: Leicester Galleries, London, 1941 Purchased from above, thence by descent to private collection, Auckland Exhibited: London. Paintings & Watercolours, Leicester Galleries, Oct. 1941, No. 105 Literature: Roger Collins and Iain Buchanan, Frances Hodgkins on Display 1890 – 1950 (Auckland, 2000), p. 81. Arthur R. Howell, Frances Hodgkins: Four Vital Years (London, 1951), p. 121. The Nook, Bodinnick-by-Fowey, Cornwall. 21st December 1931
‘I am working very hard – searching for subjects; bad light, cold hands – depression all the seven devils as usual.‘1 In August 1931 Frances Hodgkins decided to leave the bustling city of London for a quieter life in the country and consequently moved to ‘The Nook’, Bodinnick-by-Fowey in Cornwall. In a letter to Dorothy Selby, Hodgkins wrote, The Nook is neither of the “Rookery” or the “Cosy” sort but suits my needs – no other fool could stand it.2 Hodgkins painted the surrounding countryside relentlessly, as she feared her contract with galleries in London might be terminated because of the ever-worsening depression, caused by the stock market crash in 1929. Her hard work paid off and in February 1932 she exhibited with the Seven and Five Society and later that year with the Salford Gallery near Manchester, and also with Zwemmer, Tooth’s & Wertheim galleries in London.3 Once she settled in, Hodgkins found her new Cornish environment immensely stimulating not only because of the beautiful natural surroundings, but also because of her new neighbours. She wrote of them to Dorothy Selby on the 21st of December 1931, saying:
‘I enclose a picture of The “Nook” which is my temporary home. The large white house in the right belongs to Sir Gerald du Maurier which he uses as a stage setting only in the summer – But his rather beautiful son-daughter lives here, Daphne, and is [a] rather disturbing feature in the extremely homely little village.’4 One of the most significant works of Frances Hodgkins’s career, Wings over Water 1931-1932 (Tate Collection, London), is based on the view from her studio window at ‘The Nook’. It is notable that the present painting, Bodinnick, Cornwall was completed at roughly the same time as Wings over Water, and moreover, it was painted from the exact same location. Wings over Water is one of Hodgkins’s most elaborate works that combines a still life of three large shells with a landscape aspect. In Wings over Water, Hodgkins uses the window as a framing device, placing the shells in close proximity to the viewer in the foreground of the painting. The still life gives way to rolling pastoral hills and an expanse of water, while a fence with a perching parrot demarcates the middle distance. Similarly, in the present work, Bodinnick, Cornwall, Hodgkins’s studio window again acts to frame the piece beyond which the vista rapidly unfolds. Hodgkins’s use of colour is comparatively subdued as broad washes of colour are liberally applied with only a cursory regard for outlines. Movement is effectively conveyed through dashes and strokes of pigment with the scudding clouds being given only the briefest of marks. The thickly-painted black gate in the foreground of the composition is central to the compositional success of the work. Providing a solid almost tangible presence, the gate gives way to shrubbery, houses and boats that are drawn with a thin, confident line. Indeed, the gate works to guide the viewer through the painting – enticing us to open the gate and wander down into the reality of the narrow streets and the harbour of Bodinnick-by-Fowey. It is significant that a series of watercolours that Hodgkins painted at ‘The Nook’ were selected by the Tate Gallery at this time and sent to Chicago for exhibition, testifying to their compositional success and persuasive allure.5 Gill, p.446. Letter to Dorothy Selby. Ibid. 3 Drayton, p.223. 4 Gill, p.446. Letter to Dorothy Selby. 5 Ibid. 1 2
River Tone, Somerset c. 1939
Watercolour and gouache 53.5 x 37.5 cm Signed Frances Hodgkins lower left Provenance: Leicester Galleries, purchased by Mrs B C Fitzgerald, 1941 Private collection, Auckland Exhibited: London: Leicester Galleries, Paintings & Watercolours Oct. 1941, No. 107 (purchased by Mrs B C Fitzgerald) Literature: Roger Collins and Iain Buchanan, Frances Hodgkins on Display 1890 – 1950 (Auckland, 2000), p. 81. Arthur R. Howell, Frances Hodgkins: Four Vital Years (London, 1951), p. 130. The Croft, Bradford-on-Tone, Taunton, Somerset, 26th May 1940
‘I have moved over here to the Croft from Corfe Castle not because it is any safer. No place is safe but it is rather more away from it all than on the S. coast where the coastal gunfire rattled my big studio windows – very worrying. Geoffrey gave me the use of the Croft for the summer & I shall stay here so long as the Gov: doesn’t fill it up with evacuees . . . I have dispensed with the Housekeeper & am doing my own work & cooking in a sort of a fashion . . .’1 In the summer of 1934 Frances Hodgkins moved to ‘The Croft’ at Bradford-on-Tone in Somerset to look after Geoffery Gorer’s cottage, while he was away in America working for the Rockerfellers.2 Hodgkins returned to the cottage in the summer of 1939 to house sit for Gorer and to keep it warm and human.3 Hodgkins had this time, however, another reason for staying there, as she wanted to regain her failing health. Hodgkins made the cottage her home during the turbulent war years in a bid to escape the rapid coastal gunfire that had terrorised her on a nightly basis at her previous residence of Corfe Castle. It was during this second visit to ‘The Croft’ that Hodgkins painted the current work, River Tone, Somerset in around 1939. Hodgkins painted the River Tone on numerous occasions and it appears in works such as The Croft House, Bradford on Tone, Taunton, Somerset of 1946, and Cherry Tree at the Croft, Bradford on Tone, Taunton, which was also painted in 1946. The latter work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of New Zealand: Te Papa Tongarewa. As with many works from this period, these three paintings are distinguished by the adept application of gouache. Gouache is applied in a manner very similar to that of watercolour. The medium is inherently opaque and fast drying. As a result it is fraught with painterly risk as the artist must apply the pigment fluidly and quickly as there is little opportunity for alteration and none for reworking. The fluid brushstrokes and curving arcs of light are clearly visible in River Tone, Somerset. It is evident that Hodgkins worked quickly, dexterously and with great care as she applied the heavy browns, the opaque blues and the light greens that decorate the picture plane. It is Hodgkins’s success in capturing the subtleties of colour and form in this manner that ultimately led to her inclusion in the Biennale di Venezia, as a representative of Britain in 1940. Hodgkins’s works from the late 1930’s and into the 1940’s demonstrate her mastery of “that fertile gap between representation and abstraction.”4 Her work during this period is highly varied and diverse as she reworked certain views and landscapes in order to explore all compositional possibilities; deftly transcribing structural realities through her own highly personalised, idiosyncratic vision. It is Hodgkins’s perspicacious awareness of colour, form and artistic precedents that cast her art into the realm of the virtuoso. Therefore, her works are considered to be some of the most important in the context of British and New Zealand art of this period.
Gill, p.504, Letter to William Hodgkins. Ibid., p.484. 3 Ibid. 4 Iain Buchanan, Michael Dunn and Elizabeth Eastmond, Frances Hodgkins: Paintings and Drawings (Auckland, 2001), p. 81. 1 2
The Water Mill 1943
Gouache, 50 x 38.5 cm Signed Frances Hodgkins lower left and dated 1943 Provenance: Collection: Miss (Dorothy) Jane Saunders UK. Thence by descent Original hand written label attached verso: Water Mill by Frances Hodgkins lent by Jane Saunders, 12 Victoria Road. Fallowfield, MCc. Original exhibition label attached verso: 34. City of Manchester Art Gallery, 15167. Exhibited: London: Gouaches; by Frances Hodgkins The Lefevre Galleries, March-April 1943 Manchester: Pictures by Frances Hodgkins City of Manchester Art Gallery Aug - Sept. 1947 No. 34 Literature: Arthur R. Howell, Frances Hodgkins: Four Vital Years (London, 1951), p. 110 (listing Jane Saunders as the owner); No.5, p.122 & No.34, p.127. Roger Collins and Iain Buchanan, Frances Hodgkins on Display 1890 – 1950 (Auckland, 2000), pp. 82, 91. Studio, Corfe Castle, Dorset, 22nd May 1943.
‘ I need a little more time to finish the Gouaches I have for you – April-May months in spite of the idyllic weather conditions have been distracting & dithering beyond works . . .’1 Towards the end of 1942, Frances Hodgkins retreated to her studio at Corfe Castle near Wareham in Dorset to complete a series of works that were due for exhibition with the Lefevre Gallery, London. It is during this time that Hodgkins was selected to be included in the Penguin Modern Painters series written by Myfanwy Evans and edited by Sir Kenneth Clark.2 Hodgkins was delighted by this prospect and wrote; As far as pictures can be described no one could do it better.3 The book was delayed by the war, but was eventually published in 1948. On the 18th of January 1943 Frances Hodgkins sent a ‘roll’ of her most recent gouache paintings to A. J. McNeill Reid of Lefevre Gallery, London. Reid had arranged for Hodgkins’s works to be exhibited the previous November, but Hodgkins was unable to make the deadline even though she planned to create works mainly in gouache, 2 sizes – uniform sizes as much as possible.4 The delay in the production of her works could be attributed to the fact that her studio roof collapsed in June 1942 and was not repaired until later that year. She did, however, eventually complete nine gouaches, which she sent to Reid on the 18th of January.5 A further six gouaches were sent on the 21st February and she instructed Reid to put together a small, compact show of 15 gouaches that she hoped would be contemporary & recent & fresh.6 One of the works painted during her time at the studio at Corfe Castle was The Water Mill in 1943. This work depicts Hodgkins’s ability to produce a certain sense of ambiguity in her work where objects in the fore -, middle - and background appear to co-exist on a single plane. The dominant form of the mill is given a position of authority in the composition, but it does not dominate the entire arrangement. Instead it is harmoniously integrated into the lush vegetation of the surrounding landscape. The fluidity of Hodgkins’s brushwork, which is characteristic of her later work, is evident in this piece, thanks in large part to the choice of medium: gouache. The use of vivid yellow highlights, electric blues and vibrant greens contrast with the sombre planes of soft greys and blues and allow for both a sense of dynamism and for one of controlled calm.
Frances Hodgkins at Corfe Castle village, Dorset, 1945 Felix H Man Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ
Gill, p.537. Letter to Duncan MacDonald. Iain Buchanan, Michael Dunn and Elizabeth Eastmond, Frances Hodgkins: Paintings and Drawings (Auckland, 2001), p.77. 3 Ibid. 4 Gill, p.523. Letter to A. J. McNeill Reid. 5 Ibid. p.531. 6 Ibid. 1 2
Corfe Castle Village. 1945
Watercolour and gouache 44 x 60 cm Signed Frances Hodgkins lower left and dated 1945 Provenance: Leicester Galleries, London, purchased by Ian Phillips Esq, 1945 Christies, London. November 1999 Private collection, Nelson. Exhibited: London: Artists of Fame and Promise, Leicester Galleries, July - August 1945, No. 145 Literature: Roger Collins and Iain Buchanan, Frances Hodgkins on Display 1890 – 1950 (Auckland, 2000), p. 84. Corfe Castle, Dorset, 20th December 1934
‘I was feeling very much under the weather both physically & otherwise but have picked up wonderfully since coming here and am now doing quite good work under the spell of the place & general atmosphere of calm & simplicity . . .’1 Frances Hodgkins first moved from London to Corfe Castle in 1934. Corfe Castle is situated on the Isle of Purbeck, in Dorset, and is a historic site known primarily for the ancient castle ruins that sit on top of a hill immediately behind the village. Hodgkins relocated to Corfe Castle in an attempt to take ‘refuge’ in the countryside and to reconnect with her friend from St Ives, the potter Amy Krauss. Hodgkins would return to the village regularly and in 1936 she set up a small studio, in a converted chapel, in West Street. Hodgkins eventually made Corfe Castle her permanent home in 1940 when she could no longer travel back and forth to Europe. She believed that Corfe was the place for quiet ones.2 Living in Corfe Castle gave her the opportunity to work moderately hard, moderately successful in a landscape of steep valleys speedy rivers & castles looking like their own mountains.3 Hodgkins spent the first months of 1940 working on twenty-six works for the Biennale di Venezia and also for her exhibition at Lefevre Gallery, London, in April of that year. A selection of Hodgkins’s works was also included in the British Council exhibition in Paris in 1945, Quelques Contemporains Anglais, to celebrate the liberation of France. Corfe Castle was not always idyllically peaceful. With the outbreak of the Second World War (1939-1945), England’s coastline was severely battered by enemy fire and nightly German air raids. Hodgkins was greatly affected by the stress of war conditions. She wrote; the planes overhead bringing back wounded from Normandy have scared all art out me.4 A key part of her work during this period was the continued influence of French art and the increase of a neoromantic tendency in her work. The present painting, Corfe Castle Village was inspired by the local landscape around her cottage and studio. Painted in gouache in predominantly greens and blues, with dashes of bright yellow, Hodgkins makes a play on that recurring theme in her late work: the still-life combined with a landscape view. Here however, she blends architectural features into the local landscape so that roofs of houses are just seen peeking out from the richly planted terrain. The central undulating hill accompanied by a wealth of vegetation that is mapped out in a variety of strokes, produces a painting that is quietly contemplative yet deeply arresting. In regards to Hodgkins’s approach to painting, her intentions and desires, it is the artist’s own words that offer the best description: Myself, I would say that I, my medium and my subject act & react to produce new & vital creations &, if possible, achieve a perfect balance – .‘5 Frances Hodgkins in her studio at Corfe Castle, Dorset, 1945 Felix H Man Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ
Gill, p.463. Letter to A.J. McNeill Reid. Ibid., p.472. 3 Ibid. 4 Iain Buchanan, Michael Dunn and Elizabeth Eastmond, Frances Hodgkins: Paintings and Drawings (Auckland, 2001), p.78. 5 Ibid., p.81. 1 2
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