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Hi. I'm Doctor Alison Laurie. I was the Gent and women's Studies programme director at Victoria University of Wellington here in New Zealand for many years. I'm a writer, oral historian and lesbian and gay activist. Today I'm going to be looking at Francis Mary Hodgkins, a famous New Zealand woman painter. And I'm going to be considering her painting and her life, uh, in the context of [00:00:30] her close friendships with women and support that she received from men whom we know were homosexual. And what's interesting about this is the degree to which, uh in the period in which she lived, a woman living a conventional heterosexual life as a married woman would have been able to have the output of paintings that Hodgkins was able [00:01:00] to do and to lead the kind of life she was able to lead and learn her craft the way in which she managed to achieve. She lived between 18 69 and 1947. She was one of a number of expatriate New Zealanders during the early 20th century who lived in Britain or Europe, where it was easier to find support of friendship circles for, [00:01:30] uh, their lives as artists or as people attracted to their own sex. I believe that the primacy of women at Hodgkin's life was very important, as also was the financial and emotional support given to her by her male homosexual as well as her lesbian friends, Uh, and that these people made her life possible. Uh, she was born in Dunedin on the 20th of April 18 [00:02:00] 69. Her mother, Rachel Hodgkins, and her father, lawyer and artist William Matthew Hodgkins. Francis had four brothers, William, Percy, Gilbert and Frank, and one sister, Isabelle. She attended, uh, the Dunedin School of Art Classes taught by July, uh, who came to New Zealand and taught art here. And then she took pupils herself, and she [00:02:30] had a number of close women friends, uh, in Dunedin. At that time, she was also a member of a Dunedin Women's Club, the club. Her father died in 18 98 and in 19 01. She left for England, where she soon became friends with the New Zealand artist Dorothy Kate Richmond, and they became very close friends and, uh, were very important to one another. [00:03:00] Uh, Dorothy Kate Richmond, known as Dollar, was born in 18 61. So she's a bit older and she lived till 1935. The friendship probably started at Norman Gaston's art classes in, uh, in France that this is where France is. And, uh, who was age 32 had left New Zealand. And Richmond, who was older, had resigned as artists at [00:03:30] Nelson College for girls to study in Paris. Their meeting had been initiated by, uh, do Richmond, who wrote, uh, to Frances. I'm looking forward to meeting you with real joy. I think companionship doubles the pleasure and harbours the sorrows of life. After being at Gaston School, they travelled together to Paris, Italy, Uh, and Tangier and London. Um, Richmond, uh, had had a rubber bath, uh, with her [00:04:00] and, uh, a lot of other, uh, conveniences. And they did quite a bit of travelling. Uh, Francis wrote to her mother, Rachel. The most delightful part is that Miss Richmond is coming with me. And then she also wrote I am a lucky beggar to have her as a travelling companion. And then she wrote, uh, Miss Richmond has decided not to go to England, so we shall not lose sight of each other even for a few weeks, I have grown so fond of her. I don't know how I am ever going [00:04:30] to let her go. She is one of these people whom you want always with you. She wrote to her friend Kate Rattray, Uh, later that year that Miss Richmond was the dearest woman with the most beautiful face and expression I think I have ever seen. And she wrote to her sister that the other students called Miss Richmond the divine lady. When I am particularly down, Miss Richmond comes and tucks me up. She goes to England today, and it's very sad saying goodbye to her face like hers, even for a short [00:05:00] time. I wish you could see her at night with a black dress with a crimson fish shoe. I have insisted on her wearing it every night, then to her married sister Isabelle, she wrote on the Sixth of November. Miss Richmond's letters are poems. She is the dearest piece of perfection I have ever met, and unlike most perfection, not in the least tiring to live up to. We were to have started for San today, but I felt too seedy to travel in cases like this. We congratulate ourselves [00:05:30] that we have no husbands to consider. Francis had a close relationship with her family, and she wrote frequently. She could not have deleted all references to Richmond and her letters. And indeed, writing about her travels with an older woman companion as chaperone could have reassured her family of the respectability of her life. The letter seemed to be carefully constructed with her natural delight and joy at having Richmond with her bursting through in the [00:06:00] in. These quoted extracts on their return from Europe in 19 02, After a joint exhibition in New Lynn, the two women lived together in Cornwall. Then, for the first time in over a year, they were dwell. Francis stayed in London with two other friends, while Richmond went to Inverness, Scotland, to see Constance Charlotte Aley, a woman who was 10 years older than her. She had met Constance in 18 97 when she was [00:06:30] visiting New Zealand with her friend Margaret Sheehan, and had stayed with her before in 1900. Francis and Richmond had both stayed with Ashley in 19 01 at San Remo when, as was being treated for tuberculosis and Francis wrote to Dorothy from France in July 19 02. I was indeed sorry to hear of the return of Miss Leys trouble. It does not look as if Scotland was quite the best place for her, does it? Please give her my love and tell her I didn't and the least grudge you to her. [00:07:00] At first, I felt a little furious, but slept over it and calmed down. I don't see much of Lord Nichols nowadays. She is very much taken up with Miss Crompton, and they paint and ride a lot together in this extract. Francis seems jealous of Ashley, but anxious to reassure Richmond that her own friendship with Maud Nichols is not a love affair, as Nichols is so involved with Crompton. But she could not resist informing her mother that Miss Richmond is still in Scotland nursing her sick friend, Miss Ashley. It is horrid without [00:07:30] her. Then on 30th September, she wrote in some detail to her sister M Richmond and I go to London in a fortnight, and after that, our ways be separate. I don't know what I'm going to do without her. We've taken a long time to consider what is best for us both. She has only another year and must make the most of it. And she feels she must get more studio work. So, Mr Garston, with the knowledge full upon him that he was breaking up our happier home, conscientiously advised her to go back to Penzance. I'm sure it's for her own good. [00:08:00] And she would be unselfish enough to give up her time to me and go wherever I wanted if we didn't put pressure on her and insist on her considering her own interest. So I shall be alone once more by 19 03. Francis was in Tangier where she wrote to Richmond. Of course, I know that you would rather nurse one of her Miss Leys empty envelopes than read the outpourings of my innermost soul. However, I mustn't expect too much from these letters. It seems that Francis was well aware [00:08:30] of of Richmond's love affair with Contant Ley, which seems to have gone on for three years between 18 98 until 19 01 when she'd become involved with Francis and of its continuation at the time of writing, deciding on what was best for us both could be interpreted as a typical triangular relationship in which nobody can quite decide how to resolve the impasse. In 19 03, however, the two of them returned to New Zealand together and in 19 04 [00:09:00] through to 19 06, they established a studio on the corner of Lampton Key and Bowen Street and did the carriage house. And they gave a joint exhibition in 19 04. And they took in a few pupils, uh, including, uh, Edith Kathleen Bend, who was, uh, Catherine Mansfield's lover in Wellington during 19 06 19 08 And our other students. Uh, also during this time, uh, Francis had announced her engagement to a man, [00:09:30] Thomas Boton Wilby, whom she had met briefly on the ship coming back to New Zealand. But they they became engaged by post and broke it off by post, uh, the year later, uh, and they don't really seem to have had much of a, uh, relationship, uh, at all. Then Frances Hodgkins, uh, returns. She left. She leaves Richmond and she leaves New Zealand in 19 06. And although she does come back briefly, uh, in 1912 [00:10:00] and stays for nearly a year and sees Richmond during that period. Uh, it's unclear what their relationship would have been at that time. She determined to go back and, uh, during her life living in Britain. Two of the most important friends were Dorothy Jane Saunders and Hannah Ritchie, who were, uh, friends from Manchester. She had another close friend, Lucy Wham, who was a generous benefactor also, [00:10:30] uh, from Manchester. And these people helped her both financially and also to get, uh, various amounts of work she may have had a relationship with. Um, with any of these people, it's difficult to know toward the end of her life. Uh, she has another very close woman friend. Um who, uh, uh, Amy Kraus, Uh, who lives in Dorset. And, uh, that's, [00:11:00] uh, a very important friend, uh, to her as well. She also had very important, uh, male, Uh uh, homosexual friends in particular, Arthur Hanes and Cedric Morris. And she knew others in their homosexual circles. For example, the writer, uh, Jeffrey Gora and his friend Arthur Elton. And they're very important to her. Uh, they help her. They helped her for over 30 years, and, uh, they helped her during times when [00:11:30] she was very poor. Uh, at the age of 63 she was found in her basement studio with the water and light turned off. She'd pawned everything and was lying in a bed covered in newspapers. Uh ha Arthur Hanes rescued her, motored her down to his mother's house in the country, fitted her up and sent her to work. Morris, who'd become a leading painter of the Post-war generation, did what he could to help Frances Hodgkins become established as a painter. He arranged art exhibitions, [00:12:00] proposed her membership in the influential seven and five society and helped to meet Saint George's Gallery Director uh Arthur Howell, who exhibited and sold her paintings. Later. McCormick, who was it was an important New Zealand biographer for her, helps to popularise her work in New Zealand. So it's interesting, and it's interesting to compare her life with that of her sister. Uh, Isabelle. Initially, her sister had been thought to be the better painter. Uh, but [00:12:30] her sister married, and, uh, she married a, uh, William Field who was a member of Parliament. After that, she never painted seriously. She just painted small scenes on the coast for sale, which and sold. These and her husband used the money to buy more land and property, so she did not make the same kind of successful art career as Francis did. So it's an interesting comparison between them. Francis died in England, and later her nephew brought her ashes back, [00:13:00] and she is buried in the field family to at with her sister and her mother is also there. And that's quite a place of pilgrimage for those who are interested in Frances Hodgkins, who is indeed one of our greatest painters.
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