Frances Hodgkins goes digital

The Complete Frances Hodgkins, an innovative and highly searchable online catalogue of the work of New Zealand’s leading expatriate modernist artist, is now online at www.completefranceshodgkins.com.

Produced by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, the new website documents all known artworks by Hodgkins, with more than 1,200 paintings, watercolours and drawings, as well as photographs, letters and other ephemera. The Complete Frances Hodgkins also includes details of exhibition and publication references of many individual artworks.

Auckland Art Gallery Director Kirsten Paisley says: ‘Frances Hodgkins is one of New Zealand’s most important and influential artists. This year is the 150th anniversary of Hodgkins’ birth, and we are excited to be marking this anniversary – and celebrating her life and work – with the launch of this significant resource.’

‘It is important that the catalogue is digital, so it can provide up-to-date and easily accessible information for researchers around the world. The Complete Frances Hodgkins allows for an integrated examination of Hodgkins’ work by connecting her art with other aspects of her life and will be continually revised as new material becomes available.’

The Complete Frances Hodgkins includes details of each work’s title, size, medium and, where known, provenance, with new material being added as it comes to hand. The online catalogue includes digitised images of Hodgkins’ letters from the Alexander Turnbull Library, along with their associated

transcriptions. Documentary photographs and postcards from Auckland Art Gallery’s E H McCormick Research Library’s archive collection help place Hodgkins’ work in specific locations, as well as connecting her to her contemporaries.

Enabling users to traverse the richness of Hodgkins’ art and life, the interlinked records of The Complete Frances Hodgkins facilitate searches across artworks, letters, photographs and exhibition histories and by date, genre, subject and location.

The Complete Frances Hodgkins draws on the unpublished catalogue raisonné gifted to Auckland Art Gallery by former Director Dr Rodney Wilson whose endeavours were greatly aided by the research carried out by Dr Eric McCormick in the 1950s and 1960s.

Developed by a team of researchers and technicians from across Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, The Complete Frances Hodgkins has been made possible by a generous grant by the Stout Trust, as well as other supporters and numerous volunteers.

Auckland Art Gallery is also marking the anniversary of Hodgkins’ birth with the major touring exhibition Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys (at Auckland Art Gallery until 1 September). The exhibition traces Frances Hodgkins’ creative and peripatetic life through France, Morocco and Spain to her final days in England examining the significance of location as a source of artistic inspiration on her development as a modernist painter.

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