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Jonathan Gooderham
Frances Hodgkins at Chipping Campden, 1916
Frances Hodgkins at Chipping Campden, 1916
Jonathan Gooderham
Frances Hodgkins and The Greyhound Inn, Corfe ...

The Greyhound Inn sits below the remains of the Outer Bailey wall of Henry the First’s Corfe Castle between the Outer Gatehouse and the Horseshoe Tower which were added between 1280 and 1285. It was originally a 17th century coaching inn called the Black Dog and its porch bears the inscription I.C. 1733 this being the initials of the then owner, John Cockram.

Frances Hodgkins and The Greyhound Inn, Corfe Castle
1930s, Bradford-on-Tone, FOLLOWING FRANCES
Jonathan Gooderham
Anniversary of Frances Hodgkins’ Birthday

Today is the anniversary of Frances Hodgkins’ birthday on April 28th 1869.

We are pleased to recommend an excellent exhibition Frances Hodgkins: Between Croft and Corfe curated by Lauren Gutsell at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery which will be on display until July 23rd.

Anniversary of Frances Hodgkins’ Birthday

Frances Hodgkins at Chipping Campden, 1916

In the summer of 1916 Frances Hodgkins set out in search of a suitable village from which to set up and give some painting classes. Basing herself in the small town of Evesham, she explored nearby villages on a hired bicycle, finally deciding upon the quaint market town of Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire.

Above: Noel Arms, early 1900s, Jesse Taylor Collection

Hodgkins took accommodation at the historic Noel Arms Hotel, where Charles II is said to have rested after his defeat by Cromwell at the battle of Worcester. She wrote to her mother on June 22nd: ... After a hot climb up the Cotswolds I found this place as dear a little grey town as you could wish to see & such a nice Inn & landlady who understands our temperament & feeds us well & simply.12

By July Hodgkins was kept busy with a ‘thriving’ class and the promise of greater numbers in August. Not much time to spare these days. I am on the go early and late ... I have a cold bath at 6.30, get my letters & answer them before breakfast, when we all assemble to discuss the order of the day - then out till 1. o'c, after lunch a siesta & again to work after an early tea - dinner at 7.30.3

However, in August she began to grow tired, writing of her pupils: They are a dull lot of human beings, & I ... curse secretly at having to lay out so much strength & energy into such unpromising material.4 By September she was ‘brain fagged’ with ‘nothing left in the reservoir’ and was very much looking forward to saying goodbye to her students.

Frances Mary Hodgkins c. 1920

In a letter to her mother dated September 9th, Frances wrote of finally being able to take time and finish her paintings for an upcoming exhibition: A short line to say I am well but very busy finishing off pupils who depart tomorrow ... I stay on till the end of the month finishing my picture for the International, then back to St Ives ... The country is looking sweet now - the horrible greens has gone ... I am on a large picture of bathing boys. There is a pool in one of the fields, rather public, & I have to dodge the villagers & especially the Superintendent of Police who suspects I have some stunt up my sleeve not quite. I bribe the boys to bathe at 1/- a head & buns all round - I have to go like the wind for fear of being caught, but I have nearly finished now. The pool is really rather a mud hole & full of rats, but it has a lovely old, ruined gateway near it & makes a pretty picture for a pastoral.5 Frances Hodgkins held her painting classes in Chipping Campden that year 1916 from June to October, then the following year 1917 she was in Burford between June and July, in Great Barrington in the Summer of 1919, returning to Burford between 1921 – 1923.

Juliana’s Gateway 1908

The painting referred to by Hodgkins is the lively Lady Juliana's Gateway, see below. On a past trip to the UK, the author, having walked over three fields and waded through two brooks, found the ruined gateway. His resulting photograph is shown below, alongside Hodgkins' watercolour

Frances Hodgkins’s 1916 painting, Lady Juliana's Gateway. Private Collection, Auckland, NZ

Essay published in: Signpost - Chipping Campden History Society

The ‘old, ruined gateway’ present day

Bridgnorth

Bridgnorth

Surmounting the High Town of Bridgnorth stands the ruins of Bridgnorth Castle, begun in the 12th century by Robert de Belleme, Earl of Shrewsbury. Today, it leans at a perilous angle, a beloved folly standing in the midst of Victorian gardens. One of the reasons Frances Hodgkins delighted in Bridgnorth (she taught there over several summers between 1926 and 1932) was the variety of views and combinations of architectural and natural forms that were readily available.

A Personal Perspective

A Personal Perspective

It is springtime in the Cotswolds as I drive from Stow-on- the-Wold along lanes edged with dazzling white blossom of hawthorn hedges and descend into Burford’s main street of honey coloured stone houses. Over the medieval packhorse-bridge I turn left into Lawrence Lane and hold a 1920s postcard up to the scene. The church with its tall spire still dominates the view but to the left I realise the old stone wool barn that Frances Hodgkins made her home and studio in 1922 has been replaced by a modern house.

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The Weir at Bradford-on-Tone

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The Weir at Bradford-on-Tone

In June 2017 Jonathan Gooderham set out for Somerset to locate Geoffrey Gorer’s cottage and the weir on the River Tone, depicted in Hodgkins painting River Tone, Somerset c. 1939, pictured above.

Armed with an old listing for the sale of The Croft and a post code Jonathan drove into the small village of Bradford-on-Tone and parked outside St Giles Church. He set off on foot for the small stone bridge that crossed the River Tone. Having walked the riverbank for half a mile to the west, he realised that he was walking in the wrong direction. He retraced his steps, walking next to a beautiful field of golden wheat, listening to the ambling tone of the river which gradually increased in volume. The volume intensified and around the next bend in the river Jonathan spotted the water cascading down a weir (a barrier across the width of a river that alters the flow characteristics of water and usually results in a change in the height of the river level).

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A tramp on Dorset’s Jurassic coast unearthed the background to a much admired portrait of Frances Hodgkins. 

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A tramp on Dorset’s Jurassic coast unearthed the background to a much admired portrait of Frances Hodgkins. 

Hodgkins lived in Worth Matravers from 1936 – 1939, and painted some of her most important oils in a studio converted from a garden shed in the village.

Linda Gill (ed.), Letters of Frances Hodgkins, 23 July 1937, Letter to Rée Gorer, Sea View Cottage, Worth Matravers, Dorset. 

‘I started life here with a studio shed in the garden and one room – now I have spread over half the farmhouse & occupy quite a good little 3 roomed flat which I am decorating & simplifying to a labour saving bareness – with electric light & anthracite stove in the offing – to be installed before the winter. The house is a one time Vicarage, of the starkest kind, it never has had one single debonair touch – It overlooks the channel.  The mornings are lovely and I want to paint even before I have finished breakfast’.

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The West Bailey at Corfe Castle

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The first stone of Corfe Castle was laid more than 1,000 years ago. Since then it’s seen its fair share of battles, mysteries and plots. It’s been a treasury, military garrison, royal residence, family home and in recent years a much visited historical landmark.

Frances Hodgkins’ first visit to Corfe Castle

Frances Hodgkins first visited Corfe Castle in 1934 in an attempt to take ‘refuge’ in the countryside and to reconnect with her friend from St Ives, the potter Amy Krauss. Frances 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. 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.'

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'The Nook' at Bodinnick-by-Fowey

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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, Frances wrote, ‘The Nook is neither of the “Rookery” or the “Cosy” sort but suits my needs – no other fool could stand it.’ Frances 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.

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Frances in Concarneau

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In the early 1900s, Frances Hodgkins took it upon herself to further her career in Europe and Britain by holding painting classes and regular exhibitions of her work. In 1908 she became one of the first female teachers at the prestigious Académie Colarossi in Paris. Hodgkins toured around Normandy and Picardy with her group of students, sketching in the 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.

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Lesson Demonstration

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Frances Hodgkins’ principal teaching method in her art classes were 'lesson demonstrations'. Today, these demonstrations serve as unique records of her teaching technique and style, and 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.

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Chipping Campden & 'Lady Juliana's Gateway'

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In the summer of 1916 Hodgkins set out in search of a suitable village from which to take classes. Basing herself in the small town of Evesham, she explored nearby villages on a hired bicycle, finally deciding upon the quaint market town of Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire.

Hodgkins took accomodation at the historic Noel Arms Hotel, where Charles II is said to have rested after his defeat to Cromwell at the battle of Worcester. 

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Burford High Street

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Burford High Street, Oxfordshire, painted by Hodgkins circa 1922, depicts the main thoroughfare of the town. During his trip to the Cotswolds in 2013, Jonathan stopped by the town of Burford making sure to capture the same view down High Street present day. Not much has changed!

A historic photograph of the street taken circa 1920 is illustrated top for further comparison and as an indication of what Frances would have seen as she painted.