Artwork Information

Some of Frances Hodgkins' early European market scenes try to capture every last detail, but in Loading the Cart and Checking the Baskets the artist has pared back her love of patterning, defining forms with broad pools of colour and focusing on reflections of light. Hodgkins may have used some of these sketches to demonstrate techniques to the ever-growing group, mainly women, who joined her summer classes in Holland and France. Equally, they could have been aide-mémoires that she could draw on when the weather prevented her from working

outdoors.