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Hodgkins’ approach to picture-making. The drawing
for Jane Saunders and Hannah Ritchie (c.1923) is also
here but not, alas, the resulting superb oil painting
with its significantly altered composition and its
discernible influences of both Matisse and Modigliani.
Does the exhibition carry forward its thesis that
Hodgkins’ work was influenced by her travels? Well,
yes—but it is a qualified yes. Of course place—or more
precisely her experience of place—had an impact in
various ways. In some cases the change was primarily
in subject matter; for instance, the style and technique
of her Moroccan and early French paintings are
similar to her New Zealand works but applied now
to an array of exotic subjects such as street markets
and traditionally dressed locals. Her paintings of farm
machinery—much of it derelict—made during World
War II resulted from her discovery of Quarry Farm
but were just as much a response to the darkness and
privations of those war years.
Two relatively brief sojourns in Spain—on the
Balearic island of Ibiza in 1933 and at Tossa de Mar
in the winter of 1935–36—did have a marked impact
on Hodgkins’ work. In many of these paintings forms
become noticeably angular and disjointed; in some
the colours are strongly, even harshly, contrasting,
in others dark and sombre. Some of this must be
attributable to local landscape, architecture and the
‘clear ivory light’^7 but perhaps also to cold and stormy
weather, bad food and low spirits: ‘I defy anyone
to paint lovingly & buoyantly through a Spanish
winter.’^8 Her use of the gouache medium, which
shebegantoexperimentwithinearnestwhilein
Tossa de Mar may also have been a factor but is not
really addressed. And it is worth noting that Ruins
(1937) has striking similarities to many of the Ibiza
works but depicts a scene in Wales, which clearly
shows that she was willing to deploy a particular
stylistic and painterly approach regardless of locale.
As well, certain compositional motifs—for instance,
the curiously active, twisting cloths in the 1930s still
-lifes—and subjects such as her still-lifes in landscape
are prominent in her work at certain times regardless
of where they were made.
European Journeys is a large exhibition of around 160
works and merits multiple, lengthy visits and close
attention to Hodgkins’ paintings and drawings in
particular. For visitors looking for more background
information there is a series of vitrines containing
photographs, postcards and other ephemera related
to the artist’s travels and a small Study Gallery
investigates aspects of her techniques through video,
photographic images and ‘touch samples’.
European Journeys has been framed, reasonably
enough, to appeal to a broad audience and will
undoubtedly expose many visitors to a greater range
of Hodgkins’ work than they might otherwise be(below) FRANCES HODGKINS Purbeck Farm 1942
Gouache, 768 x 906 mm.
(Collection Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 1955)
(opposite) FRANCES HODGKINS Phoenician Ruins c.1935
Gouache on paper, 610 x 770 mm.
(Collection Christchurch Art Gallery Toi o Waiwhetu)