Signed l.r.: Frances Hodgkins

Watercolour and wash over pencil, 23 by 16 cm (8 ½ by 6 ¼ ins)

Provenance: acquired by the previous owner from the Gillian Jason Gallery c.1980 

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, Frances Hodgkins’s style would undergo a radical change that would establish her in the following decade as one of the key figures in British modernism. Born in New Zealand, her early work reflects the more Edwardian art of her contemporaries and it was through working with Sir Cedric Morris during the War, before later travelling to the France, that would help introduce this new approach to painting. This strong portrait is typical of the more abstracted, simplified style associated with her modernist phase. In 1929 she joined the highly exclusive Seven and Five Society working alongside artists such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson.