Exhibitions
Events
On display
Eleanor Hughes: Mona Vale to Chyangweal
Eleanor Hughes Trees On A Hedge, Watercolour. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, acquired 1978
Talk
Past event
Philip Carter Family Auditorium
Free
Curator Ken Hall presents an illustrated talk on Eleanor Hughes, a Christchurch-born artist who established herself in an artist colony in Cornwall.
Eleanor Hughes (née Waymouth) was a Christchurch-born artist who gained success in New Zealand before leaving in about 1905 for England, where she settled in Cornwall and developed her practice as a painter and printmaker. Hughes is well represented in the Gallery's collection, with ink drawings, watercolours, pencil drawings and etchings. She was hailed as a success as a New Zealand artist abroad up to the 1930s, mentioned at times in the same breath as Frances Hodgkins. Hughes's reputation in this country, however, has not endured in the same way as that of Hodgkins. This illustrated talk will look at her life and career and examine why her legacy didn't prevail.
Part of Christchurch Heritage Festival 2023.
Related
Collection
Eleanor Hughes Cliff near Lands End, Cornwall, England
This work depicts the massive granite cliffs on the western most point of the English mainland. Through much of her working life as an artist Eleanor Hughes drew the inspiration for her painting from her immediate environment in the Southwest of England.
Born Eleanor Waymouth, she left Christchurch in 1905 after studying for some years at Canterbury College School of Art. On arrival in England she continued her studies with Frank Spenlove-Spenlove at his Yellow Door Studio in London. However, by 1907 she had been attracted by the ‘Plein Air’ school of Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes at Newlyn in Cornwall. After her marriage in 1910 to Robert Hughes she remained an expatriate for the rest of her life.
Cliffs Near Lands End was exhibited at the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1929, and purchased for the permanent collection.