Style: September 01, 2022

68 Style | Art
In Frances Hodgkins’ footsteps
Settling into her new job as head of Hocken Collections, Catherine Hammond is also
discovering Dunedin. She tells Rebecca Fox about her decision to move south.
Catherine Hammond has spent hours immersing herself in
19th-century painter Frances Hodgkins’ life – now she gets
to walk in her shoes.
Hodgkins is one of Dunedin’s favourite daughters, having
been born in the city and starting her painting career here,
before going on to become one of the leaders of the English
avant-garde movement.
Her time in Europe is the subject of an extensive book
Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys co-edited by Catherine and
Mary Kisler in 2019, which accompanied a touring exhibition
and went international.
However, Catherine has never spent any significant amount
of time in Hodgkins’ home city until now that she’s relocated
there with her appointment as the University of Otago’s
Hocken Collections librarian.
“Now I get to follow her footsteps. I’ve wandered along the
street where she was born, the house is no longer there, but
you can get the sense of the grand houses of the day.”
Catherine’s move south from Auckland is the first time she
has lived in the South Island. She grew up in East Tāmaki and
studied art history at the University of Auckland before doing
her library studies in Wellington.
For the past 20 years she has lived in Auckland and her only
experience of the South is the family’s much-loved holidays in
Central Otago and Queenstown.
“It’s so beautiful. There is a real sense of excitement in moving
to this part of the country.”
The opportunity to settle in a new city is part of the
attraction to the new job, she says. Along, of course, with
career advancement, working in one of the top research
libraries in the country with its university connections and
having responsibility for a larger team.
“There’s a sense of adventure having not lived in Te Waipounamu
[South Island]. Hocken has a huge profile in the cultural heritage
sector as one of the foremost research libraries in the country.”
Catherine was head of documentary heritage at Auckland
War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira and was previously
research library manager at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.
“They’re quite similar collections there, a mix of archives,
libraries, art works; really vibrant collections. I love working with
those collections.”
Having spent 18 years at Auckland Art Gallery, she has always
known about the Hocken’s art collections.
“That’s a big drawcard too.”
ABOVE: Catherine in front of the Dunedin Sound in the Kaleidoscope World: 40 Years of Flying Nun exhibition, on in the Hocken Gallery until September 22.
Photo: Gregor Richardson OPPOSITE: One of the works by Frances Hodgkins, Friends, Double Portrait, 1922-1925, from the Hocken Collections
(bequeathed by Charles Brasch) that appeared in the European Journey exhibition Catherine was involved in. Photo: Hocken Collections