HODGKINS, Frances

1869 - 1947

Frances Mary Hodgkins was born in Dunedin, New Zealand on 28 April 1869, one of the several children of William Matthew Hodgkins (23 September 1833-9 February 1898), a lawyer & amateur artist and a leading figure in the city's art circles, and his wife Rachel Owen née Parker (14 April 1838-22 May 1926), who married at Dunedin in 1865. In 1890, Frances exhibited for the first time at Dunedin and Christchurch and in 1893 attended art classes given by Girolamo Pieri Ballati Nerli (1860-1926) and then studied at the Dunedin School of Art 1895-1896. In 1901, she left for a tour of Europe, visiting England, France, Holland, and Morocco, returning to Wellington, New Zealand in 1903 but returned to Europe in 1905. Frances exhibited at the Royal Academy and had her first solo exhibition in London in 1907 and the following year settled in Paris, teaching at Academie Colarossi and at her own school 1910-1912. Frances then returned to Australia and New Zealand, holding a series of successful shows in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Dunedin, and Wellington. On 17 October 1913, Frances returned to Europe, spending the war years at St Ives, Cornwall, after which she spent her time between France and Burford (1921-1923), Manchester (1925-1927) and London (1927-1934), with visits to Spain and the Balearic Islands between 1932 and 1934. For the remainder of her life she lived in Dorset, firstly at Worth Matravers and later at Corfe Castle, but spent much time in other parts of the UK. In later years she seems to have lost her way and would regard Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, with whom she was invited to work, as her rescuers. In the late 1930s she paid an extended visits to her friends at their East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Suffolk painting abstracted pure compositions of the countryside and Cedric Morris painted her portrait. Major paintings of Flatford Mill from this period are now at the Tate and the Towner Gallery, Eastbourne. Frances Mary Hodgkins was of The Studio, Corfe Castle, Dorset when she died at Herrison House, near Dorchester on 13 May 1947, she was unmarried. She exhibited with the Seven and Five Society of Artists and at the Claridge Gallery, St George's Gallery, the Lefevre Gallery, and the Leicester Galleries. Finally, during the artist's lifetime, a Retrospective Exhibition was held in the Lefevre Gallery in 1946. (Frances Hodgkins by Myfanwy Evans, London 1948.)

Royal Academy Exhibits
from c/o H. W. Taylor & Co., Queen's Road, Bayswater, London
1905 953 Market Day, Dinan - watercolour
from 15 Sea View Terrace, St Ives, Conrwall
1915 1252 Mardi Gras - watercolour
from 7 Porthmoor Studio, St Ives
1916 86 Gypsies - oil

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Works by This Artist