Head of a Maori Girl

Artist: Frances Hodgkins (1869—1947)
Date: 1905
Place: Rotorua
Media: watercolour on board
Dimensions: 494 × 419 mm
Catalogue number: 2023–1–19
Credit line: The Field Collection, Toi Mahara

In June 1905 Frances Hodgkins and her friend Dorothy Kate Richmond made a sketching trip to Rotorua staying at the Lake House ‘right among the Maoris’. She reported to her mother, ‘We have managed to get two good models already and have spent a busy day’ (Linda Gill, Letters of Frances Hodgkins, 1993, p176). Very few Māori works are recorded from this visit although this sketch was probably made at this time.
(Sourced from notes by Avenal McKinnon, Frances Hodgkins, the link with Kapiti: The Field Collection, Mahara Gallery, 2000).