Harbour Scene

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for Business and Trade, Old Admiralty Building

This landscape watercolour, titled Harbour Scene, by New-Zealand-born painter Frances Hodgkins shows a waterside scene, aligning medium with subject as she makes the most of the watery properties of watercolours. The pinks suggest this is a scene at dawn, with the blues offering a spark of intense colour that bring the painting to life. Despite the seated figures we see in the painting’s foreground, the image conveys a strong sense of early morning stillness. The composition as a whole speaks of her life-long interest in colour. Hodgkins, who came to Europe 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. She made two journeys to and from New Zealand over the span of just a few years before eventually settling in Europe. But she continued to travel on the continent, and also to Morocco. Harbour views and scenes of boats and floats on the seashore were common tropes in her painting.  

Frances Hodgkins was born in Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand. She trained at the Dunedin School of Art, going on to work as an art tutor and producing paintings and illustrations for publications. In 1901 she left New Zealand for Europe, travelling through France and Morocco, before settling in London in 1913. Her work featured in several group shows including at the Royal Academy (1905) and with the Seven and Five Society (from 1929). In the 1930s and 1940s, Hodgkins’ work was shown in exhibitions of modern British art, alongside artists such as John Piper, Henry Moore and Paul Nash. In 1940 she was one of a group of artists representing Britain at the Venice Biennale. Her double portrait, Loveday and Ann: Two Women with a Basket of Flowers (1915) was acquired by the Tate in 1944. She was part of an important group exhibition of work by Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Matthew Smith and Graham Sutherland, held in 1945 at the Lefevre Gallery, London. Despite the artistic milieu that she was part of, and her expertise at absorbing and adapting the colour, energy and techniques of artists such as Matisse and Braque, Hodgkins’ artistic reputation was overlooked in mid-century accounts of modern British art, as was the case with many other women artists of that time. By 1969, however, her artistic reputation began to revive with a centenary exhibition that toured New Zealand, Australia and London. Several monographs of her work were published in the 1990s, which introduced her work to new audiences.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

Artist

Frances Hodgkins (1869 - 1947)

Title

Harbour Scene

Date

Medium

Pencil and watercolour on paper

Dimensions

height: 45.10 cm, width: 60.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Leicester Galleries, February 1969

Inscription

none visible

Provenance

Collection of Mrs E. Curtis; by descent to Mrs P. E. Curtis; from whom purchased by Leicester Galleries, London; from whom purchased by the Ministry of Works in January 1969, as ‘Harbour’

GAC number

8311