Frances Hodgkins was one of New Zealand’s most prestigious and influential artists, spending most of her 56-year career overseas.

Born in Dunedin, Hodgkins’ painting abilities were recognised at a young age. Hodgkins taught art before travelling to Europe with her friend and fellow painter Dorothy Kate Richmond, returning in 1903 to set up a Wellington studio. In 1906 Hodgkins returned to London, then moved to Paris in 1908, becoming the first female instructor at the Paris art school Colarossi’s Academy in 1910, and later founding her own School for Watercolour. From the late 1920s, her style embraced modernist abstracted, simplified forms, with a strong emphasis on colour values and relationships. In 1929 she joined the Seven and Five Society alongside artists Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore. During the 1930s, Hodgkins exhibited with important London galleries, and was invited to represent Britain at the 1940 Venice Biennale, however wartime travel restrictions meant that her work could not be transported. She was considered highly among British avant-garde society and known as a key figure in British Modernism.

Hodgkins kept painting into her 70’s and, on her death in 1947, left a studio with many unfinished and unsigned paintings, resulting in family members signing or re-signing unknown works on her behalf. Stallholders may have been one of these studio works, as it was misidentified as Breton Pottery due to this title on the backing board of the frame. It is highly likely the board had been swapped with the real Breton Pottery work.