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PRISCILLA PITTS
There are many ways one could construct an
exhibition of Frances Hodgkins’ work—and over
the years a number of shows, some thematic, some
exploring her development or connections with
other artists, have been staged by New Zealand
galleries.^1 To mark the 150th anniversary of Hodgkins’
birth, curator Mary Kisler has chosen to orchestrate
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki’s Frances Hodgkins:
European Journeys around the artist’s peripatetic
life after she left the land of her birth in 1901,
ultimately never to return. Kisler has also headed the
development of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné,
which has led her to visit many of the locations where
Hodgkins painted, and the exhibition also capitalises
on this research.^2
This approach necessarily excludes Hodgkins’ early
New Zealand work and her brief but productive foray
into textile design is also not represented; however,
her sojourn in Morocco, which she found fascinating,
does find a place here. Althoughthe various gallery
In Pursuit of Greatness
Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys
spaces are given over to specific regions the exhibition
is not strictly chronological; as well as travelling in
Holland, Wales and Italy, Hodgkins visited France,
Spain and England several times—in fact her nomadic
pursuit of cheap living conditions and stimulating
subject matter would exhaust most of us even today.
War drove her back to England on more than one
occasion but for the most part her itinerant lifestyle
was self-imposed: ‘My great panacea is change of
environment. It gives one a fresh impulse & new
courage & heart.’^3
During Hodgkins’ early years in Europe new
developments in art were at fever pitch. She attended
a futurist conference in Paris in 1912 (‘a remarkable
meeting... the excitement! And the uproar!’^4 ) and
was impressed by the work of artists such as Picasso,
Braque and Matisse, less so perhaps by that of Dufy.
Traces of their various influences can be found in
her work but, despite their ‘eye-opening’ effects,
Hodgkins was not an early adopter of the more
advanced aspects of French modernism. Up to the
early 1910s she seems to owe more to aspects of
impressionism, such as the paintings of Morisot, and
perhaps also the intimism of Bonnard and Vuillard,
as evidenced in watercolours such as Le Reveil
(Mother and Child) and At the Window (both c.1912).FrancesHodgkins:EuropeanJourneys
AucklandArtGalleryToio Tamaki
4 May–1September,curatedbyMaryKisler