87once you are able to see the ‘what’ you begin to see
the ‘how’; how this exceptional artist translated the
everyday into complex, dynamic, absorbing and often
challenging images.
No major Hodgkins show would be complete
without some of her drawings. She was as versatile
and skilled with pencil, ink and chalk as she was with
paint. Look, for instance, at the row of five drawings
made in France in the 1920s. The three landscapes,
two drawn in black chalk, the third with ink, are
dense, dark, detailed images while in the slightly
later Café Martigues (pencil, c.1928) and Chez M. Le
Chef (conté crayon, 1926) faces and personalities are
deftly conveyed with quick, light strokes and just a
little shading. Elsewhere there are large, worked-up
pencil drawings such as Outside the Ramparts (1932–33)
and Stormy Sunset over Peaslake, Surrey (1930); works
like these she described as ‘more in the way of being
finished pictures than just drawings—& would gain
doubly by a frame [instead of being ‘shown’ in a
portfolio]’.^6
A few preparatory drawings, including those for
Spanish Jars (c.1931–35) and Hill Landscape (c.1936), are
included and are of interest in showing something of