Christopher Dawson
Head of Department
Lot 10
Frances Mary Hodgkins(New Zealander/British, 1869-1947)Girl with a Doll 51 x 41 cm. (20 x 16 in.)
Withdrawn
Amended
29 September 2021, 15:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£30,000 - £50,000
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Frances Mary Hodgkins (New Zealander/British, 1869-1947)
Girl with a Doll
signed 'F. Hodgkins' (lower centre)
oil on canvas
51 x 41 cm. (20 x 16 in.)
Painted circa 1926
signed 'F. Hodgkins' (lower centre)
oil on canvas
51 x 41 cm. (20 x 16 in.)
Painted circa 1926
Footnotes
Provenance
Private Collection, U.K.
'Frances Hodgkins is a serious woman painter as Emily Bronte or Jane Austen are serious women writers. Like these women she has a contribution to make to the experience of the world which no man could provide.'
(Geoffrey Gorer writing in The Listener, June 1947)
The mid-1920s was a period of experimentation for expatriate New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins (1869-1947). Having spent 1924 painting in the south of France, Hodgkins moved to Manchester for two years. For part of that time, she was employed as a designer at the Calico Printing Company who sent her to Paris in 1925 to glean the latest in fashion displayed at the L' Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes.
French painting and design remained a strong influence in Hodgkins work. In the preparatory watercolour for Girl with a Doll, circa 1925, a mother and her children are grouped in the foreground on the edge of a ploughed field, which ends with a line of tree trunks, reminiscent of French country roads. Smiling gently, the mother is smartly dressed, her gown stylishly short, hair cropped. Two younger children sit either side, while to the left is an older child, whose dark bobbed hair has a white floppy bow tied on the top. Seated across her lap is a little girl in a plaid dress, her feet in their black socks and shoes hanging in mid-air (see https://completefranceshodgkins.com/objects/26164/peasant-family-in-a-field).
One of the first New Zealand writers on Frances Hodgkins, E H McCormick, described this work as 'Peasant woman with four children grouped in foreground of ploughed field'. Yet, this fashion-conscious mother appears bourgeois, rather than workers on the land, not least when compared to many studies Hodgkins made of the shawl-clad mill girls in Manchester. Almost certainly a family member also commissioned the finished portrait in oil of the older child, Hodgkins would not have commenced the slower process of oil painting on a whim.
Hodgkins delighted in depicting children. Girl with a Doll presents a closer view of the older girl, adding a psychological edge not apparent in the initial family sketch. She now sits turned to one side, her legs tucked under her, while now the second figure dangles long dark-stocking legs, suggesting a rag doll rather than a younger child. This sense is heightened by its arms which also hang limply.
Hodgkins love of pattern is brought out in the overall treatment of soft dabs and dashes that speckle the field and garments. The white bow has disappeared, and more attention is given to the white collar – the 'white note' favoured by Hodgkins to draw the eye. The heavily patterned surface is reminiscent of Pierre Bonnard, one of many French artists who influenced Hodgkins in the early 20th century, and indeed the entire composition has a French feel, although it is more likely that the family are themselves Mancunian. In the background, the line of trees leads up a steeper slope, its diagonal adding dynamism to the composition.
Manchester friend and former student Jane Saunders said of Hodgkins; 'Something happens to everything that you make into a picture. Whatever you see . . . you must do something to it before you can create a picture. It goes into your mind and comes out again transformed. Frances could transmute everything into an interesting object . . . Everything she touched could become a beautiful picture' (Jane Saunders in Leo Bensemann and Barbara Brooke (Eds), Ascent: A Journal of the Arts in New Zealand: Frances Hodgkins Commemorative Issue, Caxton Press in association with the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand, 1969, p.52). It is exciting to see how this process was achieved with Girl with a Doll.
We are grateful to Mary Kisler for compiling this catalogue entry. Please note that the present work is included in her ongoing digital catalogue raisonne on the artist.
Saleroom notices
Please note this lot has been withdrawn
