Library and Archives
Digitised publications
A Commemoration: Frances Hodgkins' Works 1929-1946
Download PDFA Commemoration - Frances Hodgkins' Works 1929-1946
Exhibition: 22 November 1997 - 25 January 1998
The catalogue that accompanied the exhibition which focused on the last 17 years of the artist's career, the period considered the most significant in her life's work.
Menagerie
Gavin Chilcott: My Own Private Idaho & Pots
David Wilson: Blind Man in the Temple
Related
Collection
Frances Hodgkins Pleasure Garden
“You say in yr last [letter] that I will not tag on to Colonial life after staying away so long – you surely don’t expect & want me to settle down into a Maiden Aunt do you & throw up career & ambition & lose the precious ground I have gained – you are much too dear and unselfish for that I am sure. I am coming out merely to see you & Sis & the children, to be with you for a while & then to return to my work like any man of business. To make you happy I must be happy myself. I want to see you badly & feel I must come soon at no matter what sacrifice. But do realise Mother that it’s on this side of the world that my work and future career lie. I grieve sometimes that you do not understand this more.” – Frances Hodgkins, excerpt from a letter to her mother, Rachel Hodgkins, 1911
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- 21 July 2024)
Exhibition
A Commemoration: Frances Hodgkins' Works 1929-46
22 November 1997 – 25 January 1998
This exhibition of 18 works commemorates the 50th anniversary of the death of Frances Hodgkins. Included with works from the Gallery's collection are ten works, never seen publicly in Christchurch before, which have been generously loaned from the British Council and British Government art collections.
Notes
Rita Angus by Leo Bensemann
This article first appeared in The Press as 'Viewing Rita Angus with Leo's eyes' on 26 May 2015
Notes
Irises by Rita Angus
This article first appeared as 'The meticulous small world of Rita Angus' in The Press on 9 December 2014.
Notes
Tracking Louise Henderson
I recently wrote about Louise Henderson's painting Addington Workshops (1930) for the Press, and wanted to locate the place in which she stood to make the sketch for the work. It's a complex image and I wanted to understand more about its internal space as well as its history, but the workshops were demolished twenty years ago.
Notes
Raise your glass (house)
Huge congratulations to Zina Swanson who has just been announced as the Francis Hodgkins Fellow for 2013.
Notes
People in glasshouses
A few days ago, there were lots of little bits of glass and metal strewn (in a highly systematic way) across the floor of our NG gallery space.
Notes
L’Art Décoratif Théâtral Moderne
A new exhibition of stage and costume designs by Russian avant-garde artists Natal'ya Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov opens this month.
Notes
Zipp by Frances Hodgkins
‘I can't tell you the horror of the Blackout and the effects on your nerves - the want of ventilation at night is very tiring - perhaps the nastiest part of it all.' - Frances Hodgkins in a letter to her brother, William.
Collection
Zina Swanson Untitled
Zina Swanson’s precise, yet poetic painted drawings call attention to the delicacy and vulnerability of nature. Plant matter, insects and other tiny objects she collected over several years take fresh life in brushstrokes that range from feathery to forensically precise. Zina’s interest in her personal – and our human – relationship with the natural world led her to imagine a strange form of cross-species rehabilitation, where wilting forms are supported, a cutting grows the feet of a bird and processed timber receives new prosthetic roots. Her latest painting recounts an early foray into collecting, when she salvaged a discarded stick so large it had to be cut into three and reassembled in her studio. In an associated poem, she wrote: Making them part of my life, by making them part of my paintings Making a special shelf for them in my studio The collection keeps growing.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )
