Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Jane Saunders
Date
12 Jan 1944
See transcription
Catalogue number
FHL408
Date
12 Jan 1944
Transcript
Corfe Castle Jan 12 44
My Dearest Jane
Thank you for the cheque, the Roller and the Setter all safely come. It is extremely nice of Elizabeth to send so lordly a cheque and I feel touched and more than pleased that my 3 pictures are so valued & enjoyed. When you have had a goodish look at them perhaps I will be able to replace them with another little lot. Maybe I can’t. All is on the lap of the Gods.
Meanwhile this lot are yours & E’s for keeps, or later to swop as you fancy. So forgive if I return the cheque. I am not in need of it. So do, I beg you both, use it for the Holiday fund, it may come in handy, not as a guarantee of fine weather but useful for other things, so please don’t argue there’s a dear and be glad I am alive to have the happiness of returning in kind some of the many kind turns you have done in the past. I don’t forget.
I like to think your enjoyment of the pictures is 2 fold & that you have a pal to jointly agree about it – or disagree.
I feel myself blessed in being able to pass on a little bit of magic, the magic which runs about the world & is above rubies & beyond price – strictly speaking this is far from the truth but it is a pleasant ½ truth.
Why not a few days in London? To see pictures, films etc or is it too cold & crowded & fatiguing? The awful Blackout scares me – I am much too nervy to risk it. But 2 of you can mitigate the worst horrors.
Thank you for the Jack Dronsfield’s address. S.Africa is a long post. Thank F.S.S. from me will you & ask him if he has J.D.’s London or M/c address, & could he get in easy touch with J.D.’s sister. I want an answer quickly as to the whereabouts of my picture, who is storing it & where? The picture is a square framed oil of a Lancashire family.
You may remember I have a Composition by Mellon [?] Would you like to have it. It is decorative & deftly done. Or, if not you, would F.S.S. like it? A silly question to ask – without first seeing the thing.
I must get working. Lots of love Frances
My Dearest Jane
Thank you for the cheque, the Roller and the Setter all safely come. It is extremely nice of Elizabeth to send so lordly a cheque and I feel touched and more than pleased that my 3 pictures are so valued & enjoyed. When you have had a goodish look at them perhaps I will be able to replace them with another little lot. Maybe I can’t. All is on the lap of the Gods.
Meanwhile this lot are yours & E’s for keeps, or later to swop as you fancy. So forgive if I return the cheque. I am not in need of it. So do, I beg you both, use it for the Holiday fund, it may come in handy, not as a guarantee of fine weather but useful for other things, so please don’t argue there’s a dear and be glad I am alive to have the happiness of returning in kind some of the many kind turns you have done in the past. I don’t forget.
I like to think your enjoyment of the pictures is 2 fold & that you have a pal to jointly agree about it – or disagree.
I feel myself blessed in being able to pass on a little bit of magic, the magic which runs about the world & is above rubies & beyond price – strictly speaking this is far from the truth but it is a pleasant ½ truth.
Why not a few days in London? To see pictures, films etc or is it too cold & crowded & fatiguing? The awful Blackout scares me – I am much too nervy to risk it. But 2 of you can mitigate the worst horrors.
Thank you for the Jack Dronsfield’s address. S.Africa is a long post. Thank F.S.S. from me will you & ask him if he has J.D.’s London or M/c address, & could he get in easy touch with J.D.’s sister. I want an answer quickly as to the whereabouts of my picture, who is storing it & where? The picture is a square framed oil of a Lancashire family.
You may remember I have a Composition by Mellon [?] Would you like to have it. It is decorative & deftly done. Or, if not you, would F.S.S. like it? A silly question to ask – without first seeing the thing.
I must get working. Lots of love Frances
Sender's address
Corfe Castle
Credit Line
E
H
McCormick
Archive
of
Frances
Hodgkins'
Letters,
E
H
McCormick
Research
Library,
Auckland
Art
Gallery
Toi
o
Tāmaki