Algerian Girl

Artist: Frances Hodgkins (1869—1947)
Date: c1903–1904
Media: gouache on watercolour artist's board
Dimensions: 283 × 206 mm
Catalogue number: 2023–1–16
Credit line: The Field Collection, Toi Mahara

The identity of the model for this painting is uncertain. Family history has recorded the model as an Algerian girl which would suggest that it was painted during Frances Hodgkins’ five-month visit to Morocco 1902–1903. However, E H McCormick titled the work Maori Head in which case it may have been painted on her return to New Zealand in 1904 or 1905. The work is shown pinned to the wall of the Bowen Street studio in a photograph of Frances Hodgkins taken in either late 1904 or early 1905.
(Sourced from notes by Avenal McKinnon, Frances Hodgkins, the link with Kapiti: The Field Collection, Mahara Gallery, 2000).