Overview
In 2007, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki acquired these 20
paintings by expatriate New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins.
Painted in the first decade of the 20th century, they were hidden
away in a drawing folio before the original owner's family
discovered them in 2007.
These sketches may have served as teaching points for her many
students, but how they came to be in a French private collection
remains a mystery.
When Hodgkins exhibited similar watercolours in Sydney and
Melbourne in 1912-13, she told a reviewer how she had gone to
England in 1901 looking for colour and light. Unable to find it,
she 'fled to France', where she attended Norman Garstin's sketching
class at Caudebec-en-Caux.
However, it was her trip to Morocco the same year that proved a
turning point. Mediterranean culture provided Hodgkins with a
simplicity of architectural forms, sparkling light and strong
colour, all elements of what eventually became her own highly
individual style.
In Paris, Hodgkins revelled in debates, experimentation and the
desire for new forms of expression which were central to the
avant-garde movements. We see Hodgkins pushing the boundaries of
traditional watercolour, using the kind of experimentation that
eventually transformed her into one of the leading English
modernists of her day.
From 5 November 2011
Level 1
Free entry
Image: Frances Hodgkins, The piano lesson, c1909
gouache and watercolour
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 2007