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1940s

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

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’.

The West Bailey at Corfe Castle

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.'