Artwork Information

This portrait of Hodgkins’ friend, Elsie Barling, was done when they were staying in a cottage in Sussex around 1931. According to Barling, she was descending the little winding staircase, and the artist asked to stay where she was for a moment while she drew her. The work was later given to a fellow guest, Dorothy Selby, with the inscription ‘Of a friend to a friend by a friend’. Hodgkins had a great love of patterned fabrics, which must have been of considerable help when she worked for six months in Manchester as a fabric designer in 1925. (Frances Hodgkins - Leitmotif, 2005)