Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Hannah Ritchie
Date
17 Aug 1922
See transcription
Catalogue number
FHL021
Date
17 Aug 1922
Transcript
Studio St Lawrence’s Street Burford Oxon Thursday
My dear Hannah
My very best thanks for looking after my pictures so carefully & well. I think you managed splendidly & I am so very grateful to you both for all your kindness & care. I was certain you wld have to pay on the railway. There is a heavy embargo on loose pictures travelling as luggage as I know to my cost on other occasions.
August is a poor month for London galleries, but I am glad you saw the Tate, really worth a visit since the Moderns are housed there. The weather shows signs of improving – we need it badly – but it is still cold & blowy. I have made 2 separate Drawings of trees near Trehernes Farm & have my eye on the brown lady in ballet skirts that Miss Saunders made into such jolly shapes. How would it do to send a p.c. to Mr Frank Rutter, whose address you have, & ask if there is to be an Allied Artists Exh this Autumn. Then you could perhaps send a group of Drawings. They hang each artist separately in groups. As you know it is a modern Independent Show & is held at the Mansard gallery. He is always on the look out for young progressive spirits & asked me some time ago to recommend the AA A who is the London equivalent of the Paris Salon Independents. There are 2 old St Valeryites due tomorrow, nice clever girls. I wish you could all have met l - Sybil Fisher is one of them. This is her 5th year with me. Also a Miss Findlater, sister of the novelist who is having a few lessons. She is a sad dreary Scotswoman & I have had a heavy week cheering her & Mrs Cormick. It is hard work teaching brains that have no faculty. One has first to create that – before getting on to the task of improving their taste & imbueing them with the love of the proper things in Nature. One Sat: evening 9 pm I took my sketch book to the evening class to meet the Louard (?) family. Mother & Father drew Daughter who sat or wriggled for 20 mintues on the arm of a chair – an enormous fledgeling much too big for the tiny studio. They stayed on till midnight - I left at ten – tired – the conversation disappointing – all about the parish pump. I gathered he was militant but not in the forward line – in fact Academic. So disappointing & from Paris too.
I wonder did you get the Yellow Catalogue in Oxford. It actually was yr own copy that you lent me. I hope you will have some decent weather & have a real good time. I am set firm on Manchester & shall build on it & look forward greatly to spending a month with you if you will be able to bear with me for so long. For me it will be an interesting & most delightful experience. It will be so much easier to work the oracle from a comfortable & congenial background with you both in strong support. Well Au Revoir & all best wishes. I do miss you. Yours ever sincerely Frances Hodgkins
My dear Hannah
My very best thanks for looking after my pictures so carefully & well. I think you managed splendidly & I am so very grateful to you both for all your kindness & care. I was certain you wld have to pay on the railway. There is a heavy embargo on loose pictures travelling as luggage as I know to my cost on other occasions.
August is a poor month for London galleries, but I am glad you saw the Tate, really worth a visit since the Moderns are housed there. The weather shows signs of improving – we need it badly – but it is still cold & blowy. I have made 2 separate Drawings of trees near Trehernes Farm & have my eye on the brown lady in ballet skirts that Miss Saunders made into such jolly shapes. How would it do to send a p.c. to Mr Frank Rutter, whose address you have, & ask if there is to be an Allied Artists Exh this Autumn. Then you could perhaps send a group of Drawings. They hang each artist separately in groups. As you know it is a modern Independent Show & is held at the Mansard gallery. He is always on the look out for young progressive spirits & asked me some time ago to recommend the AA A who is the London equivalent of the Paris Salon Independents. There are 2 old St Valeryites due tomorrow, nice clever girls. I wish you could all have met l - Sybil Fisher is one of them. This is her 5th year with me. Also a Miss Findlater, sister of the novelist who is having a few lessons. She is a sad dreary Scotswoman & I have had a heavy week cheering her & Mrs Cormick. It is hard work teaching brains that have no faculty. One has first to create that – before getting on to the task of improving their taste & imbueing them with the love of the proper things in Nature. One Sat: evening 9 pm I took my sketch book to the evening class to meet the Louard (?) family. Mother & Father drew Daughter who sat or wriggled for 20 mintues on the arm of a chair – an enormous fledgeling much too big for the tiny studio. They stayed on till midnight - I left at ten – tired – the conversation disappointing – all about the parish pump. I gathered he was militant but not in the forward line – in fact Academic. So disappointing & from Paris too.
I wonder did you get the Yellow Catalogue in Oxford. It actually was yr own copy that you lent me. I hope you will have some decent weather & have a real good time. I am set firm on Manchester & shall build on it & look forward greatly to spending a month with you if you will be able to bear with me for so long. For me it will be an interesting & most delightful experience. It will be so much easier to work the oracle from a comfortable & congenial background with you both in strong support. Well Au Revoir & all best wishes. I do miss you. Yours ever sincerely Frances Hodgkins
Sender's address
Studio, St. Lawrence's Street, Burford, Oxon
Credit Line
E
H
McCormick
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