Books
Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys
by Catherine Hammond & Mary Kisler Auckland University Press, Auckland 2019
MICHAEL DUNN
Frances Hodgkins is one of New Zealand’s most admired and best-known painters, even though she spent most of her career in France and Britain and it was in England that she found fame late in her life.
Many of her works are now in New Zealand galleries and collections where they can be readily seen. She has been thought of as an expatriate painter, indeed the expatriate painter since Eric McCormick published his influential book of that title on her in 1954. The Expatriate was a fundamental and founding work of art history in this country that established Hodgkins as a woman who sacrificed domestic life and security for the existence of a poor and solitary modern painter determined to achieve artistic excellence in the face of near overwhelming odds, both economic and social. The discovery and use of her copious letters by McCormick gave the story a graphic and authentic dimension that added immensely to its appeal. While her reputation has fluctuated in Britain since its highpoint at the time of her death in 1947, in New Zealand her name is revered and her works admired and sought after.
There have been several excellent monographs published on Frances Hodgkins, as well as catalogues, but Frances Hodgkins: is a welcome addition. Lavishly illustrated and produced, it accompanies an exhibition of the same name opening at the Auckland Art Gallery in May, before a tour of the major centres.
