Flowers in a Vase

Location

Country: New Zealand
City: Wellington
Place: British High Commission

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. 

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

vase (as Subject), still life, petal, flower, window, wallpaper, curtain

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Frances Hodgkins (1869 - 1947)

Title

Flowers in a Vase

Date

c.1928-1930

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 88.00 cm, width: 70.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Mayor Gallery, February 1958

Inscription

BL: Frances Hodgkins

GAC number

4513