Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Isabel Field
Date
19 Oct 1897
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Object Detail
Date
19 Oct 1897
Transcript
Nevada Tuesday evening [c. 19 October 1897]
My dearest Sis
It is a deadly hot and deeply unwholesome afternoon so take it not amiss if this is a scratch of a letter. The heat has come suddenly and rather bowled us over. I am going out to Brighton for a week on Monday and am hoping to get some sketches. I am going to stay at Bert’s diggings, a one roomed cottage and Stuart Bartleman is coming with me. The Exhibition has been open a fortnight now and a matter of 3 or 4 small and very dreadful pictures have been sold. It is rather a poor show but the loan collection is a good one and leavens the rest. Daisy Fitchetts work is splendid but there is now work especially outstanding. Mr Nairn’s and Miss Richardson’s pictures seem to have faded, one of Nairns is almost black. It must be the paints they use, for one cannot help contrasting them with Mr Gouldsmith’s beautiful fresh oils hung beside them and with the color as fresh as when he first painted them. I touched up the lilac bonnet and altered it considerably and took out the purple and it looks quite a different picture. If it does not sell here or at Chch. You are to have it eventually for the new house. It does not sound a very general gift does it but you know how necessary it is for me to sell my pictures. I have a little scheme on for the winter if I can only run it and that is to go down to the Islands on that excursion the U.S.S. co is running. Mrs Hocken is going and is very anxious I should go with her. I feel sure I could make something out of it for that kind of scenery and native life appeals to me tremendously. I believe £25 would cover expenses and my classes so far promise to pay, so it is just on the cards I will go. I would be able to stay with you and Mrs Cargill coming home, and I should have a lovely time, provided of course, you could take me in, perhaps the new house will be an accomplished fact by then. Mrs Ritchie has asked me to go to Cannington this year, but I am not going. Mrs Willie Davidson is to be in Dunedin in January before going Home again and I have promised I would give her sketching lessons during that month, so I shall content myself with a week at Warrington with Mrs Hosking. Since writing to you last I have formed a Monday afternoon class, so I have plenty of work to keep the pots boiling. Did I tell you I had joined the Shakespeare Club! Don’t laugh, one must do something! And I have been twice and enjoy it immensely. I am cast for Nerissa’s part at the next reading in December. Father is greatly interested in my performances at the Club. I really think with a little persuasion he would become a member himself. I think he is much better that hot weather seems to have set him up, and he has benefited by his little trip to Waitati. He went out on Saturday and on Tuesday Mother and I went out and spent the day with him and we all came home together. Poor Dr Parker was buried at Warrington that day. It was a great shock to everybody, and he will be most sincerely missed. He had diabetes and he was in a state of coma for two or three days before he died and suffered no pain. I must bring this scrawl to an end. We are going to an afternoon tea at Mrs Hart’s- the idea is enough to produce perspiration. We were very sorry indeed to hear about Mr Beauchamp. How very sad for his family. Mrs Scott is back and is much better, her servants are playing up a bit and giving her a little trouble. The cornices and centrepeices (sic) of their new house are quite hideous and altogether the furnishings are inclined “to ordinary”. I was quite disappointed. That is the worst of being artistic so much is expected of one. With much love from us all your loving sister Fanny
My dearest Sis
It is a deadly hot and deeply unwholesome afternoon so take it not amiss if this is a scratch of a letter. The heat has come suddenly and rather bowled us over. I am going out to Brighton for a week on Monday and am hoping to get some sketches. I am going to stay at Bert’s diggings, a one roomed cottage and Stuart Bartleman is coming with me. The Exhibition has been open a fortnight now and a matter of 3 or 4 small and very dreadful pictures have been sold. It is rather a poor show but the loan collection is a good one and leavens the rest. Daisy Fitchetts work is splendid but there is now work especially outstanding. Mr Nairn’s and Miss Richardson’s pictures seem to have faded, one of Nairns is almost black. It must be the paints they use, for one cannot help contrasting them with Mr Gouldsmith’s beautiful fresh oils hung beside them and with the color as fresh as when he first painted them. I touched up the lilac bonnet and altered it considerably and took out the purple and it looks quite a different picture. If it does not sell here or at Chch. You are to have it eventually for the new house. It does not sound a very general gift does it but you know how necessary it is for me to sell my pictures. I have a little scheme on for the winter if I can only run it and that is to go down to the Islands on that excursion the U.S.S. co is running. Mrs Hocken is going and is very anxious I should go with her. I feel sure I could make something out of it for that kind of scenery and native life appeals to me tremendously. I believe £25 would cover expenses and my classes so far promise to pay, so it is just on the cards I will go. I would be able to stay with you and Mrs Cargill coming home, and I should have a lovely time, provided of course, you could take me in, perhaps the new house will be an accomplished fact by then. Mrs Ritchie has asked me to go to Cannington this year, but I am not going. Mrs Willie Davidson is to be in Dunedin in January before going Home again and I have promised I would give her sketching lessons during that month, so I shall content myself with a week at Warrington with Mrs Hosking. Since writing to you last I have formed a Monday afternoon class, so I have plenty of work to keep the pots boiling. Did I tell you I had joined the Shakespeare Club! Don’t laugh, one must do something! And I have been twice and enjoy it immensely. I am cast for Nerissa’s part at the next reading in December. Father is greatly interested in my performances at the Club. I really think with a little persuasion he would become a member himself. I think he is much better that hot weather seems to have set him up, and he has benefited by his little trip to Waitati. He went out on Saturday and on Tuesday Mother and I went out and spent the day with him and we all came home together. Poor Dr Parker was buried at Warrington that day. It was a great shock to everybody, and he will be most sincerely missed. He had diabetes and he was in a state of coma for two or three days before he died and suffered no pain. I must bring this scrawl to an end. We are going to an afternoon tea at Mrs Hart’s- the idea is enough to produce perspiration. We were very sorry indeed to hear about Mr Beauchamp. How very sad for his family. Mrs Scott is back and is much better, her servants are playing up a bit and giving her a little trouble. The cornices and centrepeices (sic) of their new house are quite hideous and altogether the furnishings are inclined “to ordinary”. I was quite disappointed. That is the worst of being artistic so much is expected of one. With much love from us all your loving sister Fanny
Pages
7 pages
Sender's address
Nevada
Institutional No.
MS-Papers-0085-06
Credit Line
Letters
from
Frances
Hodgkins.
Field,
Isabel
Jane,
1867-1950
:
Correspondence
of
Frances
Hodgkins
and
family
/
collected
by
Isabel
Field.
Ref:
MS-Papers-0085-06.
Alexander
Turnbull
Library,
Wellington,
New
Zealand.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22902955
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22902955