To Rachel Hodgkins, 28 July 1910. Concarneau.

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…

In 2007, twenty previously unknown watercolours by Frances Hodgkins were purchased by the Auckland Art Gallery from the Parisian art dealer Mathieu Néouze. 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.

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.

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Written by Grace Alty & Jonathan Gooderham
Edited by Jemma Field

In this watercolour, Hodgkins depicts a subject that she regularly painted at the turn of the twentieth century, a group of figures in a domestic setting. The technique used in this watercolour is typical of these early works, being constructed through a series of loose, fluid washes of colour. It is very similar in terms of style to works such as The Window Seat (Art Gallery of New South Wales), painted in 1907. It is most likely that The Family After Dinner was painted in the early 1910s.

The present watercolour depicts four figures in an interior complete with a pale green sofa, heavy drapes and a glowing lamp in the background. The soft focus and golden light of the painting indicates early evening, and the calm poses of the figures coupled with the muted palette add a romantic element. Hodgkins consciously contrasts the strong vertical brushstrokes in the curtains and sofa with the rounded curve of the back of the sofa.

In this painting, Hodgkins clearly communicates the ambience of the scene rather than specific details, such as the identity of the figures. Indeed, the figure by the lamp is very subtly intimated and is almost in complete shadow. The gentleman in the foreground bears a remarkable resemblance to Hodgkins’ friend and patron Moffat Lindner, President of the St Ives Art Club, whose Porthmeor Studios Hodgkins occupied during her 1914-1920 stay in St Ives. Hodgkins painted a portrait of Lindner with his wife and daughter in c.1916 in his Porthmeor Studio, so it is possible this scene captures the family together again at his Chy-an-Porth home. The gentleman faces away from us, absorbed in his reading, while a woman beside him extends her arms out holding a wool skein. Beside her sits another woman, her head bent in reading, while a younger woman opposite them is engrossed in her knitting, or rolling the wool from the skein into a ball.

The focus on the effects of sombre lighting clearly shows Hodgkins’ interest in the French Impressionists at this time and their concern with the effects of light. The present painting also shows Hodgkins’ interest in French Intimiste interiors by artists such as Edouard Vuillard (1868 – 1940), whose works she would have seen in Paris. Thus, the very pale greens and dashes of cream are set off against the warm browns and reds to create an intimate scene of allure and charm. A further element of poignancy is evident in the familial scene and is ‘enhanced by her exclusion from them.’

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Written by Jonathan Gooderham

To Will Field, 30 March 1918. Wharf Studio, St Ives.

My Dear Will
….The other day 3 nice girls, all from NZ, blew into the Studio - Miss Denniston of Peel Forest - Barker - ditto & Beatrice Wood from Chch, a bright fair haired girl with a fluffy dog in her arms. She wanted me to paint her a sketch of herself for her Dad - William Wood - which I did! She was awfully pleased & sent a cheque for 8gns and has dunned her Father for the balance of £12.12. ... She is a masterful, young person - of the nice sort, & I would like to adopt her…

Beatrice Wood (1889 - 1987) was born in Christchurch and educated at Rangiruru Girls' School, where her interest in painting began. She attended a finishing school in England before returning to art school in Christchurch where her tutors included Sydney Lough Thompson and Margaret Stoddart. Back in England at the outbreak of World War I, Beatrice served as a volunteer ambulance driver at the New Zealand base at Codford on Salisbury Plain. Part of her role included caring for recuperating officers, which indirectly lead to a major turning point in her personal and artistic life. Having contracted measles at Codford she went to St. Ives for a holiday, where she met and befriended Frances Hodgkins.

E. H. McCormick in his book The Expatriate describes their first meeting:

... and there was Miss Beatrice Wood who, one day in the early spring of 1918, 'blew in' to the studio at St. Ives, 'a bright fair haired girl with a fluffy dog in her arms'. She was 'a masterful young person - of the nice sort' endowed with a business sense inherited, Frances supposed, from 'that big family of miller and merchant Woods' she herself had known as young men when they visited Christchurch in her youth. In her masterful fashion, Miss Wood commissioned a portrait which was completed after three sittings and sent to New Zealand in the care of Sir Joseph Ward.

The present painting was the first of Hodgkins' oils to reach this country and Miss Wood, Frances reported, was 'awfully pleased' with the finished portrait, sent a cheque for eight guineas and 'dunned' her father for the remaining twelve.

While Miss Wood rested at St. Ives after her patriotic labours in the canteen at Codford, an intimacy sprang up between the two; 'I would like to adopt her,' wrote Frances after their first meeting.

The portrait itself is a fine example of Hodgkins' work of the period, with her intriguing use of strong, contrasted colours in the sitters face and hat, skillfully juxtaposed with the pastel tones prevalent in the painting. This early modernist technique is also evident in another of Hodgkins' important works of the period, Loveday and Anne (Tate Gallery, London). Both pictures were completed at a time when she was relatively new to oils as a medium and certainly she appears to use the oil paint almost as if it was watercolour, adding to the freshness and spontaneity of the Portrait of Miss Beatrice Wood.

The two artists remained in close contact until Beatrice's return to New Zealand. In 1921 Beatrice married Tom Seddon, son of New Zealand's former Prime Minister Richard John Seddon. As well as raising three children, Beatrice made time to pursue her artistic career, holding many 'one-man' exhibitions throughout the country. An enthusiastic gardener, many of her paintings were inspired by the camellias and rhododendrons in her own garden at Wadestown Road, Wellington. From the early 1950's a New Zealand home was not considered complete without one of Beatrice Seddon's beautiful floral studies. Beatrice also enjoyed portraying the New Zealand landscape, particularly the West Coast of the South Island and her childhood home, Canterbury. Her work also caught the eye of many visitors to this country and it is said "that there are now many homes in England, Australia, America and even India that are lovelier for one of her paintings." Lady Freyberg was one of Mrs Seddon's most enthusiastic admirers and it was she who was responsible for choosing one of Beatrice's works to adorn the Royal Suite at Government House when Princess Elizabeth visited in 1952. In 1971 Beatrice travelled to Norfolk, England to view an exhibition of Flower Paintings of the World where one of her own flower studies had been selected by the National Art Gallery to represent New Zealand.

From Frances Hodgkins to Rachel Hodgkins, c. Nov 1917, The Wharf Studio, St Ives

‘... Am going to spend the week end at Penzance with the Hellyers who have taken the Bolithos’ big old Tudor House & are giving a house warming. The only fly in the ointment is that I have so few clothes – attrition has gone on steadily since the outbreak of war’.

In September 1914 Frances Hodgkins was based in Le Faouët in Brittany, but decided to return to England and settle in St Ives, Cornwall at the outbreak of war. She remained in the small fishing village for most of the war, apart from brief summer stays in Chipping Campden, Exeter, Burford, Porlock and Penzance in south-west England. She hoped to establish herself as an art tutor and continue the success she achieved in Paris with her School for Water Colour. Indeed, her first comment about her new Porthmeor studio was ‘that it will do very nicely for a Class – not pretty but useful’.

By January 1915 she had established her studio and wrote to her mother, ‘I start teaching next week with three pupils and more to come ... I have one local pupil – a nice woman who is going to be a great help to me in many ways – she has a glorious collection of old china & has given me a carte blanche to borrow it when so disposed’.2 Hodgkins’ initial flurry of activity was disrupted by war time restrictions and coastal sketching bans.

Severe food shortages and a decline in student numbers during the winter of 1917-18 placed significant strain on her. Things perked up in March 1918 when three students,‘all from NZ, blew in the Studio’, one of which was Beatrice Wood.3 With war over and the sketching ban lifted, there were plenty of artist visitors to St Ives interested in lessons. She left St Ives at the end of 1918 and returned to her studio in London.

The work illustrated here belongs to a select group of watercolours painted by Hodgkins during post-war uncertainty and experimentation. Other works in this series include, Seaside Lodgings (Private collection) and My Landlady (Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki), both exhibited alongside The Little Wine Shop at the International Society exhibition in the autumn of 1919.

Hodgkins lightness of touch employed here belies the intensity of detail observed and the highpoint of depiction is the appealing little dog doing its best to pass unnoticed. The guiding inspiration for this watercolour seems to have been the work of Hodgkins’ old favourites Edouard Vuillard and Walter Sickert, but the end result is very much her own. Hodgkins’ progression from impressionism to post-impressionism, whilst in St Ives, and her interest in decorative details are clearly visible in this composition. This work did not reappear at exhibition after 1919, as its original companions did, and was instead acquired by Hodgkins’ brother William Hodgkins, who held the work in his collection until his death in 1945.

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1. Letters from Frances Hodgkins. Field, Isabel Jane, 1867-1950 : Correspondence of Frances Hodgkins and family / collected by Isabel Field. Ref: MS- Papers-0085-29. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

2. Linda Gill (ed.) Letters of Frances Hodgkins (Auckland University Press 1981) p. 299 # 242

3. Ibid. p. 229 # 283

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Written by Jonathan Gooderham & Grace Alty
We are grateful to Dr Pamela Gerrish Nunn for her assistance in compiling the catalogue entries.

From Frances Hodgkins to Rachel Hodgkins, 8 June 1919, Charlton Arms - Ludlow – Salop

‘It is a great old place, grandly situated on a hill top, on the borders of Wales. In one of the towers of the Castle the two little Princes lived till wicked Uncle Richard took them away. I have a room facing on the river, a tiny attic of a place very hot, & I have to cook my own breakfast, tea & supper, on a spirit lamp, getting my midday meal at the Charlton Arms just across the river’.

The war years had been a challenging time professionally, financially and emotionally for Hodgkins. Seeking to re-establish the success she had achieved in France, Hodgkins arranged a sketching class in the market town of Ludlow, Shropshire in the summer of 1919. She spent two months teaching a group of six students in the small village, taking in different views of the town.

The present watercolour was exhibited at the International Society 26th Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery in October 1919 and at the Hampstead Gallery the following year. The painting depicts Dinham Bridge with the ruined medieval fortification standing on a promontory overlooking the River Teme. Her works during this period illustrate Hodgkins’ inclination to move away from the animated colour and interest in light of her earlier Impressionist landscapes towards a more structured composition and restricted colour effect. The paint is thinly washed over an initial drawing in a range of closely related hues.

A similar work Landscape (Ludlow Castle) 1919, currently in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, depicts the scene illustrated here from an alternate view. The bridge was a popular artist haunt and Hannah Ritchie, one of Hodgkins’ closest friends, also depicted this scene. Sketched two years earlier, Ritchie had sent her sketch, Bridge with Distant Landscape Seen Through One of the Arches (Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Ta¯ maki), to Hodgkins for appraisal. In her response Hodgkins emphasised the importance of structure and the use of fresh colour in watercolour painting; ‘the older I grow in Water Colour I realise the great charm is freshness and lovely colour’.1 She adds that an artist should strive to ‘get the character and essential spirit of the place in the simplest manner’. 2 Characteristics clearly achieved in her own composition.

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1. FH to Hannah Ritchie, c.Aug. 1917, St Ives, Cornwall. quoted in Iain Buchanan, Michael Dunn, Elizabeth Eastmond Frances Hodgkins Paintings and Drawings (Auckland University Press 1994) p.35 2. Ibid. p.35

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Written by Jonathan Gooderham & Grace Alty
We are grateful to Dr Pamela Gerrish Nunn for her assistance in compiling the catalogue entries.