Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Gilbert Hodgkins
Date
15 Aug 1928
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Object Detail
Date
15 Aug 1928
Transcript
London Aug: 15th
Dear Chief
Heartiest Congratulations! I was rejoiced to read in the Evening Post of your new honours. Splendid – I am glad. Thank you for sending me the papers – your photograph, I think, is excellent, a most impressive head and strangely like Father. I hope the new Post will enable you to have more leisure, and the salary is as dignified as the Office. You do deserve to have some of the good things of life and I am so delighted this recognition has come while you are young enough to enjoy it. Muriel must be proud of her man. Odd how you and I are in the news together, fluttering in the limelight – the same week. Quite a nice sort of article, tho’ hardly calculated to start a boom in my work. It is about time they realise I exist and am doing something a little more significant than the usual ruck of artists who come to Europe – even if it is unpopular now people will in time grow used to the strangeness of my technique, a ‘handwriting’ unfamiliar to them and therefore ‘eave a brick at its ‘ead!’. That is the present irritating attitude of the public towards my work. I have won my difficult way by sincerity it is the only test. The foe, of course, is debt, starvation etc and I have had the rottenest of times during the long struggle but I hope to survive. I have now got a Studio in London. It is in a Mews – mostly garages & 1 blacksmith, 1 vet: 2 artists beside myself – poor & very poor people in the neighbouring streets, mostly Jews & Italians, & a big sprinkling of Germans – I have never seen so many fat boys. The next big street is the sort of London Latin Quarter, a rival to Chelsea & Bloomsbury. One time the Rents were very low – now soaring to fancy prices. I give £80 for one room which does not exude comfort – indeed I doubt if I shall be able to winter in it. I can buy all my food in the little shops round about – you can get anything from stewed eels to kippers! & lovely fruit off the barrows – but nothing is really cheap (nor as nice) as in France. July – Aug: have been frightfully hot. It is my bad luck not to be in the country. I suppose you drive your own car – or do the big daughters drive for you? How is Percy getting along? I would like to hear some cheery news of him.
This is a stupid letter dear Bert but it is the best my dull brain can do tonight – an air war is taking place this week for the capture of London & tonight is the 2nd night of bombardment – it is quite realistic enough to be thrilling even tho’ no bombs nor poison gasses are dropped. I believe an enormous amount of destruction has taken place & only so far a few raiders ‘caught’. Of course, by rights, I should be in the Underground and not writing to you. No doubt I should be under a layer of death spread by poison gas – awful thought – I hope I shall not be alive by then. Tonight’s mimic battle is quite dramatic enough but as an earnest of future warfare – appalling. My love to your Family & my loving regards to Percy & Quida when you see them & I wish you splendid health & a good heart to enjoy your new success.
Ever yours affectionately Fanny. I lived on lemons until they went up to 5d each!
Dear Chief
Heartiest Congratulations! I was rejoiced to read in the Evening Post of your new honours. Splendid – I am glad. Thank you for sending me the papers – your photograph, I think, is excellent, a most impressive head and strangely like Father. I hope the new Post will enable you to have more leisure, and the salary is as dignified as the Office. You do deserve to have some of the good things of life and I am so delighted this recognition has come while you are young enough to enjoy it. Muriel must be proud of her man. Odd how you and I are in the news together, fluttering in the limelight – the same week. Quite a nice sort of article, tho’ hardly calculated to start a boom in my work. It is about time they realise I exist and am doing something a little more significant than the usual ruck of artists who come to Europe – even if it is unpopular now people will in time grow used to the strangeness of my technique, a ‘handwriting’ unfamiliar to them and therefore ‘eave a brick at its ‘ead!’. That is the present irritating attitude of the public towards my work. I have won my difficult way by sincerity it is the only test. The foe, of course, is debt, starvation etc and I have had the rottenest of times during the long struggle but I hope to survive. I have now got a Studio in London. It is in a Mews – mostly garages & 1 blacksmith, 1 vet: 2 artists beside myself – poor & very poor people in the neighbouring streets, mostly Jews & Italians, & a big sprinkling of Germans – I have never seen so many fat boys. The next big street is the sort of London Latin Quarter, a rival to Chelsea & Bloomsbury. One time the Rents were very low – now soaring to fancy prices. I give £80 for one room which does not exude comfort – indeed I doubt if I shall be able to winter in it. I can buy all my food in the little shops round about – you can get anything from stewed eels to kippers! & lovely fruit off the barrows – but nothing is really cheap (nor as nice) as in France. July – Aug: have been frightfully hot. It is my bad luck not to be in the country. I suppose you drive your own car – or do the big daughters drive for you? How is Percy getting along? I would like to hear some cheery news of him.
This is a stupid letter dear Bert but it is the best my dull brain can do tonight – an air war is taking place this week for the capture of London & tonight is the 2nd night of bombardment – it is quite realistic enough to be thrilling even tho’ no bombs nor poison gasses are dropped. I believe an enormous amount of destruction has taken place & only so far a few raiders ‘caught’. Of course, by rights, I should be in the Underground and not writing to you. No doubt I should be under a layer of death spread by poison gas – awful thought – I hope I shall not be alive by then. Tonight’s mimic battle is quite dramatic enough but as an earnest of future warfare – appalling. My love to your Family & my loving regards to Percy & Quida when you see them & I wish you splendid health & a good heart to enjoy your new success.
Ever yours affectionately Fanny. I lived on lemons until they went up to 5d each!
Pages
4 pages
Recipient's address
Gillbert Graham Hodgkins Esq., Chief Electoral Officer, Wellington, New Zealand. P.M. London, Aug. 15, 1928
Institutional No.
MS-Papers-0085-43
Credit Line
Letters
from
Frances
Hodgkins.
Field,
Isabel
Jane,
1867-1950
:
Correspondence
of
Frances
Hodgkins
and
family
/
collected
by
Isabel
Field.
Ref:
MS-Papers-0085-43.
Alexander
Turnbull
Library,
Wellington,
New
Zealand.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22849866
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22849866