Frances Hodgkins
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1869, d.1947
Farmyard
- c. 1940
- Gouache
- Gifted by the Contemporary Art Society, London, 1967
- 800 x 900mm
- 69/57
Tags: abstraction, anthropomorphism, buildings (structures), churches (buildings), farmyards, houses, religious buildings, wheels (components)
Farmyards were a constant source of imagery throughout Hodgkins’s career. This is one of several farmyard paintings she completed around 1940 with a central motif of wagon wheels. In ‘Farmyard’ the spokes of the two wheels stand out starkly against a muted background. The wheels take on an almost anthropomorphic quality, resembling two intimidating eyes staring out at the viewer. As is typical of her late period, Hodgkins’s treatment of the subject is loose and lyrical, with highly simplified forms used to represent the houses and church in the background. (Brought to Light, November 2009)
Exhibition History
Related
Notes
The Watercolour Collection
The Gallery's Watercolour Collection had modest beginnings, but over the past 70 years it has grown steadily by gift and purchase and, of all the Collections, still maintains a largely traditional emphasis. When the Gallery opened in June 1932, just 28 of the 128 paintings on display were watercolours and, of these, 11 were by British artists and 17 by New Zealanders. Among the mostly nineteenth century British watercolours were those by Helen Allingham, Edgar Bundy, Matthew Hale, Laura Knight, William Lee Hankey and Ernest Waterlow. In contrast, the New Zealand watercolours were by mostly contemporary or early twentieth century artists and included works by James Cook, Olivia Spencer Bower, Margaret Stoddart, Maude Sherwood, Eleanor Hughes and Alfred Walsh. The foundation Watercolour Collection included two paintings of larger than usual dimensions. William Lee Hankey's We've been in the Meadows all day (1184 x 878mm) and Charles N. Worsley's Mount Sefton (996 x 1105mm) are still greater in scale than any other work in the Watercolour Collection.