FRANCES HODGKINS Orange Sellers, Tangier 1903. Watercolour. Theomin Gallery, Olveston, Dunedin
FRANCES HODGKINS The Market Place, France 1903. Watercolour and body colour. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Bequeathed 1956 by Mr Percy Hodgkins, the artist's brother.
FRANCES HODGKINS Red Cockerel 1924. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1957 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society.
FRANCES HODGKINS Mill House, Ponterwyd mid-1930s. Gouache on paper on card. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased with funds from the Richdale Trust through the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society.
FRANCES HODGKINS Still Life with Fruit Dishes c 1937. Oil on canvas laid on hardboard. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Gifted 1949 by a group of anonymous donors.
FRANCES HODGKINS Flowers and a cat 1941. Gouache on paper. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Gifted 1982 by Mary, Dora and Esmond de Beer through the National Art Collections Fund, London.
Frances Hodgkins
Earthly Pleasures
28 April 2007 - 30 September 2007
… so if you will sweetly come & occupy my Pavillion for as long as you like I shall be happy…. You will love my garden & the sacred citron tree in the centre of the courtyard – heavy with fruit – I eat my meals beneath its shade….
Frances Hodgkins to Hannah Ritchie c. 17 April 1929
Frances Hodgkins (1869-1947) delighted in the good things in life and in the pleasures yielded up by the earth. Her letters are full of references to food – its abundance or scarcity, taste and appearance – and it is clear that, despite periods of privation, she took great pleasure in the sensory experiences offered by delicious food and beautiful flowers and gardens.
Her descriptions of meals are many and various. A trip to Paris in 1931 was memorable for “a very exciting show of Picasso – Braque – Matisse etc …” and for “a perfect dejeuner chez Prunier oysters, langoustine – fois gras – seated on high stools at a Marble Bar – of Heaven …”. At Ibiza in the Balearic Islands “we celebrated – for what I forget – on olives & Xeres wine at the least disreputable Bodegan …”, while at Corfe Castle in 1942 there are gooseberries, strawberries and a “wonderful cake” sent by her niece, “easily the worlds best cake in the Mrs Beeton class …”
In her early letters home from various parts of Europe and North Africa, between comments on exhibitions, artists, making and selling works, she writes of food markets brimming with melons, oranges and pomegranates, of flower markets and gardens, of “fragrant flowers irises & tulips & oleanders & roses”, of “sitting under a magnolia tree in the scorch of a blazing sun”.
Hodgkins lived through two world wars. During the second of these she seems to have subsisted largely on fruit and vegetables – revelling in delights such as raspberries, gooseberries and strawberries (“but no cream”), as well as “sprouts, roots etc from the garden, potatoes of course, wh. I cook in my own sweet way, good olive oil in place of bad butter – occasional eggs – a daily pint of milk ….” Bad food and hunger were part of her experience at different times in her life; but it is her delight in earthly pleasures that comes through most strongly – and engagingly – in her letters and her art.
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