W. M. Hodgkins
Encyclopedia
William Mathew Hodgkins (1833 - 9 February 1898) was a 19th century New Zealand
painter.
According to his daughter Frances Hodgkins
the 'father of art in New Zealand', he was certainly the chief advocate of art in Dunedin
when the city led New Zealand in the 19th century. The founder of New Zealand's first public art gallery
and the first person to publish at any length about New Zealand art, he was a considerable water colour painter in his own right. He encouraged his daughters, one of whom, Frances Hodgkins, was regarded as Britain's most distinguished woman artist at the time of her death and is still New Zealand's best regarded expatriate painter.
Baptised in Liverpool
23 September 1833 in the heart of the city's slums he was the son of a brushmaker, also called William Hodgkins. His mother had been Jane Grocott or Groocock and his sister Jane was born in 1835. William Mathew went to school at Staveley, Derbyshire
and his exercise book in penmanship survives, prefiguring his adult career as a law clerk
and lawyer
and his lifelong interest in graphics. By 1852 his father was in business in Birmingham
but William Mathew was a law clerk in London
. He lived in Holborn
, worked for Waterlow and Sons
, famous printers of stamps and bank notes, and for the Patent Office
. By 1855 he was in Paris
where he assisted in 'literary work' at Versailles
, perhaps copying correspondence or graphic works. Back in London about 1857 he studied Turner's paintings and other artists, at Hampton Court and the National Gallery. In 1859 he worked at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Sometime between 1856 and 1858 Hodgkins's family emigrated to Melbourne
in Australia
. In 1859 he followed them on the White Star
whose surgeon was Thomas Hocken
. By April 1862 Hodgkins had left Melbourne and was living in Dunedin.
He worked as an ornamental writer and then for Gillies and Richmond, no doubt as a law clerk. He met Rachel Owen Parker and married her at St. Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin
, 19 September 1865. He was admitted to the Otago
Bar in 1868.
Hodgkins earliest known painting is dated 1862. It is not known how he learnt the craft but his association with George O'Brien
may be significant. He did not exhibit in the New Zealand Industrial Exhibition, held in Dunedin in 1865 but took charge of its photographic department. He organised a Fine Arts exhibition in Dunedin in 1869 with the aim of starting a public art gallery. That did not happen but in 1875 he founded what soon became the Otago Art Society. Although there was resistance to his plans to start an art gallery under his presidency in 1881 the society started to collect pictures. In 1882 its council agreed to start a 'national collection of works of art'. A resolution of 14 October 1884 effectively founded the Dunedin Public Art Gallery
the first institution of its kind in New Zealand.
Hodgkins's career as a lawyer went into decline. In 1884 he moved his family from a house in Royal Terrace, a good address in the city, to a rented cottage at Ravensbourne, a harbourside suburb. In 1888 he was declared bankrupt. Hodgkins struggled out of these difficulties, eventually moving the family back to a large rented house in town. He was involved in organising the art department of the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition held in Dunedin in 1889. In the same year he proposed the idea of a government-funded national gallery with collections in each of the four main centres. While that did not happen, the collection of the Dunedin gallery was augmented from the exhibition, a new building erected, and a support group was founded: the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society.
Hodgkins' own art had developed considerably. An accomplished landscape painter in the Romantic manner of Turner
the most notable characteristic of his work is its use of colour. New styles were brought to New Zealand in 1890 by G.P. Nerli, Petrus van der Velden
and J.M. Nairn. Hodgkins embraced the newcomers and with Nerli in Dunedin the resulting twin circles of painters made the city for a while the foremost centre of art in New Zealand.
Hodgkins died in Dunedin on 9 February 1898, survived by his wife, two daughters and four sons. He left his family poor but they and the community remembered a cheerful, persevering, ambitious man. The society and the public gallery he had founded endured and prospered. He had published the first considered statement of any length on New Zealand art and he left behind a body of works the best of which are among the best of their kind in New Zealand. The Southern Alps of New Zealand.. of 1885 is often mentioned; The South Canterbury Plains from near Peel Forest of 1882 is remarkable for its breadth and simplicity. Both are now in the collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Hodgkins's daughters Isabel, and particularly his younger daughter Frances furthered his interest in art. In retrospect Frances's estimation of him does not seem exaggerated. He is undoubtedly one of New Zealand's most influential artistic figures of the 19th century.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
painter.
According to his daughter Frances Hodgkins
Frances Hodgkins
Frances Mary Hodgkins was a painter chiefly of landscape and still life, and for a short period was a designer of textiles. She was born in New Zealand, but spent most of her working life in Britain...
the 'father of art in New Zealand', he was certainly the chief advocate of art in Dunedin
Dunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...
when the city led New Zealand in the 19th century. The founder of New Zealand's first public art gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
and the first person to publish at any length about New Zealand art, he was a considerable water colour painter in his own right. He encouraged his daughters, one of whom, Frances Hodgkins, was regarded as Britain's most distinguished woman artist at the time of her death and is still New Zealand's best regarded expatriate painter.
Baptised in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
23 September 1833 in the heart of the city's slums he was the son of a brushmaker, also called William Hodgkins. His mother had been Jane Grocott or Groocock and his sister Jane was born in 1835. William Mathew went to school at Staveley, Derbyshire
Staveley, Derbyshire
Staveley is a town within the borough of Chesterfield, in Derbyshire, England. The town is situated alongside the River Rother, adjacent to Eckington to the north, Barlborough to the east, Sutton-cum-Duckmanton civil parish to the south and Brimington to the west.-History:It has traditionally been...
and his exercise book in penmanship survives, prefiguring his adult career as a law clerk
Law clerk
A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Law clerks are not court clerks or courtroom deputies, who are administrative staff for the court. Most law clerks are recent law school graduates who...
and lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
and his lifelong interest in graphics. By 1852 his father was in business in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
but William Mathew was a law clerk in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He lived in Holborn
Holborn
Holborn is an area of Central London. Holborn is also the name of the area's principal east-west street, running as High Holborn from St Giles's High Street to Gray's Inn Road and then on to Holborn Viaduct...
, worked for Waterlow and Sons
Waterlow and Sons
The Waterlow and Sons Limited was a major worldwide engraver of currency, postage stamps, stocks and bond certificates established in 1897, in England.-Portuguese Bank Note Crisis:...
, famous printers of stamps and bank notes, and for the Patent Office
Patent office
A patent office is a governmental or intergovernmental organization which controls the issue of patents. In other words, "patent offices are government bodies that may grant a patent or reject the patent application based on whether or not the application fulfils the requirements for...
. By 1855 he was in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where he assisted in 'literary work' at Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
, perhaps copying correspondence or graphic works. Back in London about 1857 he studied Turner's paintings and other artists, at Hampton Court and the National Gallery. In 1859 he worked at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Sometime between 1856 and 1858 Hodgkins's family emigrated to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. In 1859 he followed them on the White Star
White Star
The White Star is a fictional, cruiser class combat spacecraft type in the science fiction television series Babylon 5.- Depiction :The White Star-class was designed and built through a collaborative effort between the Minbari religious caste and the Vorlon Empire...
whose surgeon was Thomas Hocken
Thomas Hocken
Thomas Morland Hocken was a prominent New Zealand collector, bibliographer and researcher. He was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire on 14 January 1836, the son of a Wesleyan minister, and educated at Woodhouse Grove School and a school in Newcastle...
. By April 1862 Hodgkins had left Melbourne and was living in Dunedin.
He worked as an ornamental writer and then for Gillies and Richmond, no doubt as a law clerk. He met Rachel Owen Parker and married her at St. Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin
St. Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin
St Paul's Cathedral is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin, in New Zealand and the seat of the Bishop of Dunedin.-Location:The Cathedral Church of St Paul occupies a site in the heart of The Octagon near the Dunedin Town Hall and hence Dunedin...
, 19 September 1865. He was admitted to the Otago
Otago
Otago is a region of New Zealand in the south of the South Island. The region covers an area of approximately making it the country's second largest region. The population of Otago is...
Bar in 1868.
Hodgkins earliest known painting is dated 1862. It is not known how he learnt the craft but his association with George O'Brien
George O'Brien (painter)
George O'Brien was an engineer of aristocratic background who turned to art in 19th century Australasia, dying in poverty but leaving a body of remarkable work.-Biography:...
may be significant. He did not exhibit in the New Zealand Industrial Exhibition, held in Dunedin in 1865 but took charge of its photographic department. He organised a Fine Arts exhibition in Dunedin in 1869 with the aim of starting a public art gallery. That did not happen but in 1875 he founded what soon became the Otago Art Society. Although there was resistance to his plans to start an art gallery under his presidency in 1881 the society started to collect pictures. In 1882 its council agreed to start a 'national collection of works of art'. A resolution of 14 October 1884 effectively founded the Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Dunedin Public Art Gallery
The Dunedin Public Art Gallery holds the main public art collection of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Located in The Octagon in the heart of the city, it is close to the city's public library, municipal chambers, and other facilities such as the Regent Theatre.-History:The gallery was founded by...
the first institution of its kind in New Zealand.
Hodgkins's career as a lawyer went into decline. In 1884 he moved his family from a house in Royal Terrace, a good address in the city, to a rented cottage at Ravensbourne, a harbourside suburb. In 1888 he was declared bankrupt. Hodgkins struggled out of these difficulties, eventually moving the family back to a large rented house in town. He was involved in organising the art department of the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition held in Dunedin in 1889. In the same year he proposed the idea of a government-funded national gallery with collections in each of the four main centres. While that did not happen, the collection of the Dunedin gallery was augmented from the exhibition, a new building erected, and a support group was founded: the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society.
Hodgkins' own art had developed considerably. An accomplished landscape painter in the Romantic manner of Turner
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
the most notable characteristic of his work is its use of colour. New styles were brought to New Zealand in 1890 by G.P. Nerli, Petrus van der Velden
Petrus Van der Velden
Petrus van der Velden , who is also known as Paulus van der Velden was a New Zealand artist of Dutch descent. Van der Velden was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and died in Auckland, New Zealand, 11 Nov 1913...
and J.M. Nairn. Hodgkins embraced the newcomers and with Nerli in Dunedin the resulting twin circles of painters made the city for a while the foremost centre of art in New Zealand.
Hodgkins died in Dunedin on 9 February 1898, survived by his wife, two daughters and four sons. He left his family poor but they and the community remembered a cheerful, persevering, ambitious man. The society and the public gallery he had founded endured and prospered. He had published the first considered statement of any length on New Zealand art and he left behind a body of works the best of which are among the best of their kind in New Zealand. The Southern Alps of New Zealand.. of 1885 is often mentioned; The South Canterbury Plains from near Peel Forest of 1882 is remarkable for its breadth and simplicity. Both are now in the collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Hodgkins's daughters Isabel, and particularly his younger daughter Frances furthered his interest in art. In retrospect Frances's estimation of him does not seem exaggerated. He is undoubtedly one of New Zealand's most influential artistic figures of the 19th century.