The Dunedin of Frances Hodgkins

Dunedin was the birthplace and the home for thirty-two years of the internationally recognised artist Frances Hodgkins (1869-1947). This trail traces her homes, her schools, her training as an artist, her studios and the collections which provide a representative survey of her work.

The Hodgkins family had no fewer than eight homes in Dunedin in the period before Frances Hodgkins left for Europe in 1901. Several have been demolished, but their third home, Claverton House in Royal Terrace, where Frances lived from age seven to age fifteen, is well preserved. It is marked with a Historic Places plaque.

Frances was educated at several private girls’ schools, none of which survive to the present. She received her art training from the Italian painter G.P. Nerli, who had a studio in the Octagon. She also attended the Dunedin Art School in the north-east quadrant of Moray Place.

Frances had the use of several studios, including one in the South British Insurance Building on the corner of Liverpool and Bond Streets. This is the only surviving building in which she worked in Dunedin.

The Dunedin Public Art Gallery in the Octagon has one of the largest public collections of this artist’s work. The Hocken Library on Anzac Avenue has a smaller but still wide-ranging collection of her watercolours, drawings and oil paintings. Olveston, the grand home of the Theomin family in Royal Terrace, has three of her works in its art collection.

This trail is a Hocken Library and Dunedin Art Gallery partnership project.

Click here to download The Dunedin of Frances Hodgkins (793Kb)