waikanae - Kapiti Coast District Council

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FRANcES HodGKINS
Waikanae Cemetery, Ngarara Road, Waikanae
Frances Hodgkins (1869–1947) remains New Zealand’s
best known and much loved expatriate artist. Her
artwork and the story of her development as an artist
are central to the story of New Zealand art. She was born
in Dunedin, but in the second half of her life developed
an increasingly strong connection with Wellington and
Kāpiti.
Frances Hodgkins’ older sister Isabel (1867–1950), also a
very good artist, married Kāpiti farmer, landowner and
politician Will Field (1861–1944). Frances Hodgkins first
left New Zealand in 1901 to make her life and develop
her career in the artistic centres of Europe. She made
three return trips to visit family between 1903 and 1912,
during which she painted local landscapes and portraits,
such as The Goose Girl, 1905. Frances also often sent
paintings back to family to look after or for exhibitions in
New Zealand and Australia. These became the basis of
the Field Collection of forty-four artworks which remain
in Kāpiti.
SITE
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Frances was very
close to Isabel, felt a
romantic attachment
to Kāpiti Island and the
landscape here, and
said that Waikanae had
become ‘ancestral’ for
their family after their
beloved mother Rachel
died and was buried
here in 1926. Some
years after Frances Frances Hodgkins, London, ca 1920
Gill shadbolt Collection, alexander
Hodgkins’ death in
Turnbull Library
England in 1947, her
ashes were brought home and interred in the Field
family plot in Waikanae Cemetery.