HODGKINS, Frances, 1869-1947
Courtyard in Ibiza (Watercolour)
A childhood in Dunedin gave painter Frances
Hodgkins a life-long aversion to cold weather.
The south of France was her usual destination
as soon as dreary English winters began to bite,
but in the middle of the Depression she ventured
instead to Baleares, the third largest of the
Balearic Islands off the coast of the Spanish
town of Valencia in the West Mediterranean.
Better known now for the dance parties and rave
culture that made it iconic in the late 1990s, the
Balearic capital of Ibiza was fascinating to
Hodgkins for its Roman, Phoenician and
Carthiginian remains, and its famous
whitewashed architecture.