Frances Hodgkins, The Weir 1943
Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1967 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society
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.
Drawn primarily from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery collection, this exhibition focuses on late career work by Frances Hodgkins, from 1939 to the mid 1940’s.
Unnerved by the coastal gunfire of WWII and the military convoys rumbling through the narrow village streets of Corfe Castle, Frances Hodgkins often left her studio there for the peaceful sanctuary of Geoffrey Gorer’s rural cottage The Croft at Bradford-on-Tone in nearby Somerset.
The exhibition at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery includes the Bradford-on-Tone oil painting The Weir 1943 which is derived from the same scene as the 1939 watercolour and gouache River Tone, Somerset illustrated in the 2016 catalogue, Frances Hodgkins, A Singular Artist.
In June 2017 Jonathan returned to the Somerset of his school days visiting Bradford-on-Tone hoping to locate ‘The Croft’ and find the weir which Frances Hodgkins had so often visited to produce these paintings.
The Weir Pool below the Mill Stream