The
Flowers in a Vase in this eponymous painting are set in front of a window, through which we see the view outside. The sky is rendered with simple blue and white brushstrokes and we see a landscape in shades of a sandy brown, that stands in contrast to the rich colours of the interior. The flowers and the vase, as well as what we can see of the room, are painted in thick applications of oil paint, or impasto strokes. Both the window and the vase of flowers are framed by the rich green pattern on the curtains for the window. Hodgkins, who came to Europe from New Zealand as a young artist in 1901, lived through an era where the impressionists, post-impressionists and Fauvists were important influences in the works of many painters. Colour was an important part of her work and she often painted still lifes immersed within a landscape as she explored the relationship between these genres. Looking at Flowers in a Vase, we might also remark on the relationship between the exterior and interior. It is tempting to relate this dissonance of a richly-coloured interior against a muted exterior to Hodgkins’ biography. Hodgkins never married and her most persistent relationship was with the artist Dorothy Richmond (1860–1935), whom she described as ‘the dearest woman with the most beautiful face and expression’. Like most women of her time, Hodgkins was not open about her sexuality though there is evidence of her living what would then have been seen as an ‘unconventional’ existence with an openness to the queer world. Her interior life was quite likely at odds with the world around her, an idea that resonates in this work. A series of high profile exhibitions in the 1930s and 1940s saw her reputation as a colourist and a significant modernist painter grow , such that
Flowers in a Vase featured in a major exhibition of Hodgkin’s work in London in 1937. Hodgkins used many of the props in her still lifes in various paintings and similar vessels and tables are represented in works by her in other collections in both the UK and New Zealand.