Following Frances — Frances Hodgkins Artist and Paintings Top

FOLLOWING FRANCES | A series of vignettes exploring places where Hodgkins lived & painted | Click to view →

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The West Bailey at Corfe Castle

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The first stone of Corfe Castle was laid more than 1,000 years ago. Since then it’s seen its fair share of battles, mysteries and plots. It’s been a treasury, military garrison, royal residence, family home and in recent years a much visited historical landmark.

Frances Hodgkins’ first visit to Corfe Castle

Frances Hodgkins first visited Corfe Castle in 1934 in an attempt to take ‘refuge’ in the countryside and to reconnect with her friend from St Ives, the potter Amy Krauss. Frances eventually made Corfe Castle her permanent home in 1940 when she could no longer travel back and forth to Europe. She believed that Corfe was the place for quiet ones. Living in Corfe Castle gave her the opportunity to work 'moderately hard, moderately successful in a landscape of steep valleys speedy rivers & castles looking like their own mountains.'

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Frances in Concarneau

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In the early 1900s, Frances Hodgkins took it upon herself to further her career in Europe and Britain by holding painting classes and regular exhibitions of her work. In 1908 she became one of the first female teachers at the prestigious Académie Colarossi in Paris. Hodgkins toured around Normandy and Picardy with her group of students, sketching in the villages of Concarneau, Le Havre and St Valery-sur-Somme. It was on these teaching trips that Hodgkins met and befriended some of her most loyal companions, one of the most significant of which was Jane Saunders. Hodgkins first met Saunders and her partner, Hannah Ritchie, in 1911 at Concarneau and friends such as this pair, continually supported her throughout her life.

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Lesson Demonstration

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Frances Hodgkins’ principal teaching method in her art classes were 'lesson demonstrations'. Today, these demonstrations serve as unique records of her teaching technique and style, and illustrate both the confident fluidity of her brushwork and her keen eye for the nuances of light and colour.

Executed rapidly, pencil marks in Lesson Demonstration, Burford are still visible beneath the washes of colour. Hodgkins evidently sketched the significant landmarks in front of her with pencil and then applied swathes of loose, thin paint, which were allowed to bleed and merge in many areas. In transcribing the vista, all attention is given over to capturing the bare essential forms of the landscape and the chromatic variances of the scene so that the work consequently assumes an abstract quality.

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Chipping Campden & 'Lady Juliana's Gateway'

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In the summer of 1916 Hodgkins set out in search of a suitable village from which to take classes. Basing herself in the small town of Evesham, she explored nearby villages on a hired bicycle, finally deciding upon the quaint market town of Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire.

Hodgkins took accomodation at the historic Noel Arms Hotel, where Charles II is said to have rested after his defeat to Cromwell at the battle of Worcester. 

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Burford High Street

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Burford High Street, Oxfordshire, painted by Hodgkins circa 1922, depicts the main thoroughfare of the town. During his trip to the Cotswolds in 2013, Jonathan stopped by the town of Burford making sure to capture the same view down High Street present day. Not much has changed!

A historic photograph of the street taken circa 1920 is illustrated top for further comparison and as an indication of what Frances would have seen as she painted.

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