Kaleidoscope - Frances Hodgkins

By the time she died in 1947 aged 78, expat Frances Hodgkins was recognised as a key figure in British art. Subtitled 'A Painter of Genius', this 1989 Kaleidoscope portrait mixes archival material with recreations of Hodgkins working in England in the 1940s, and being interviewed by Vogue. Her "gypsy" life ranges from a Dunedin upbringing, leaving New Zealand in 1901, to painting and teaching in Europe, and struggles with poverty and health. After embracing modernism in the 1920s, her art combined still life and landscape in original ways. TV veteran (and artist) Peter Coates directs.

New Zealanders like me can't help becoming denationalised. They have no country, it's sad, but true. One carries about an exaggerated sense of not quite doing the right thing leaving your home and family.

– Frances Hodgkins on the angst of being an expat, in a letter home to her family

Key Cast & Crew

Ray Henwood

Narrator

Peter Coates

Director, Writer, Design

John Whitwell

Producer

Anne Chamberlain

As: Reporter

Guy Boyce

As: Photographer

Mildred Woods

As: Frances Hodgkins