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| ARTIST: | Frances Mary Hodgkins |
| DATES: | New Zealand 1869 - 1947 |
| TITLE: | Boats in the Harbour, Concarneau |
| MEDIUM: | Black chalk and watercolour on paper |
| SIZE: | 59 x 60 cm |
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Provenance: Private Collection, Montfort-l'Amaury, France. Painted in Brittany c. 1909. |
| $NZ: | Category G |
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Frances Mary HODGKINS New Zealand 1869 - 1947 “I feel that if I had known what was before me I should never have had the courage to begin.” Frances Hodgkins is regarded as New Zealand’s most famous expatriate painter. Born in Dunedin, she became a successful artist in England from the 1930s, many years before her avant garde style found favour in New Zealand. However it was only after the outbreak of World War II that she won critical recognition and popularity. Her father William Matthew Hodgkins and sister Isobel Field were both skilled watercolourists. In 1893 she studied with Girolamo Pieri Nerli, who encouraged her in portraiture and figure painting, then from 1895-96 she attended Dunedin School of Art. Having left New Zealand in 1901, she finally settled in England in 1913, spending most of her time in London and Cornwall, with frequent visits to Continental Europe. Her early work included portraits, genre pictures and some landscape painting, while her style moved from impressionist to post-impressionist, and from the ate 1920s she began to integrate still life and architecture with landscape. She developed a technique of fluid calligraphic painting (often compared to that of Henri Matisse and Raoul Dufy) and her later works were increasingly abstracted. The first sign that she had achieved her cherished objective was the unexpected success of an exhibition held in 1940 and from that time onwards her paintings were much sought after. In the spring of that year Hodgkins represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, in 1942 she was honored with a Civil List pension and in 1944 the Tate Gallery bought a picture. Hodgkins exhibited at the Lefevre Galleries in London from 1930 and in November 1946 they held the retrospective exhibition of her work that would mark the peak of her career. The exhibition received a warm and positive response from the London press and the gallery director wrote to Frances: “The whole Gallery is filled with your works, and we have overflowed into the corridor with some black and white drawings, that no other artist in the twentieth century, at least in this country, has been able to produce.” He called it "the most impressive exhibition by a British painter I have seen in many years." Her work is held in all New Zealand public galleries and in numerous British galleries including the Tate Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum. |
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| Jonathan Grant Galleries Ltd 280 Parnell Rd, Parnell, Auckland, New Zealand. Telephone +64-9-308 9125 Email jonathan@jgg.co.nz |
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