E H McCormick, Works of Frances Hodgkins in New Zealand, Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland, 1954, p. 191

From early in her career as an artist in New Zealand, Frances Hodgkins was drawn to images of women and children, often focussing on trying to create an accurate rendition of what she observed, rather than the relationship between mother and child. It is in her watercolours of young Māori mothers on the Otago peninsula that we find a growing sensitivity to her subject matter.

After travelling to Europe in 1901 Hodgkins’ style began to evolve, influenced by the artistic developments she was exposed to in France where one only had to visit the dealer galleries in Paris and beyond to see the experiments Impressionist artists had made in the second half of the nineteenth century painting out of doors. They captured light and its effect on form by building up dabs and dashes of paint to create an impression, a style that Hodgkins quickly adopted. Initially, these Impressionist works were to sell better in Australia than New Zealand, the country of her mother’s birth being more open to new painting approaches than Dunedin or Wellington.

Returning to Holland in 1906 before settling in Paris in 1908, she observed the way in which ordinary people often spent time on their doorstep or in the street itself once their domestic activities were completed for the day, accompanied by their children. Hodgkins not only captured their activities, but also became an astute observer of the relationship between mothers and their offspring. While her style of painting gradually reflected both from the broad spectrum of Impressionist but also Post-Impressionist artists who used a brighter, often unnatural palette, her own observations of intimate domestic subject matter demonstrated the influence of Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassat, both successful women artists in what was still very much a man’s world.

Two Women and Children in a Garden, also known as The Picnic, is an example of her more experimental postimpressistic approach to painting that emerged around 1910. Paint is laid wet on wet, as seen in the upper right where rapid dabs of pigment using a broad brush have been allowed to flow slightly down the paper, suggesting a clump of bushes or trees. Here the subjects are observed in a garden or park, the two women (whether they are mothers or children’s nurses we cannot tell) are seated on the ground with their backs to the artist. Women often took the opportunity provided by these moments of leisure to carry out handiwork such as sewing or embroidery. It is impossible to ascertain if that is the case here although the white folds held by the woman on the left suggest she may be stitching a large piece of cloth.

Summer heat is suggested by the lightness and simplicity of their garments, their upswept hair exposing their necks to any wafting breeze. Their attention is focused on a child of three or four, whose shock of red hair frames a barely perceptible yet determined little face. A second child is initially harder to make out, sitting on the knee of a woman whose aquiline profile suggests a figure of character. A blue-hooded perambulator indicates that a sleeping infant may rest inside. The whole composition is a flurry of washes dabbed and darting, exposed patches of white paper creating a contrast to the depth of blues, yellows and greens, making the garden itself an abstract screen that sets off the figures in the foreground. There is no sense that the artist is intruding on their restful solitude, merely quietly observing their interactions with her rapidly applied brushwork.

MARY KISLER

First Exhibition of Water-colour Paintings by John Marshall. Paintings, Water-colours and Gouaches by Frances Hodgkins, 1869-1947. New Paintings by Keith Vaughan, Leicester Galleries, London, 08 Jun 1956 - 28 Jun 1956

Private Collection
Webb’s, Auckland, 29 Jun 2004, lot no. 72
Lady Dorothea Turner, Wellington
Mrs Alan Mulgan, Wellington, purchased at Churchill Auctioneers, Thame, 1942
Mr & Mrs Edmond Atkinson, acquired from the artist, c. 1918


CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ NUMBER
FH0545