Ruins

‘The mornings are very lovely and I want to paint even before I have finished breakfast.’ So wrote New Zealand expatriate Frances Hodgkins from Worth Matravers, a village on England’s south coast.

In <em>Ruins</em>, she has treated the abandoned quarry decoratively, flattening and patterning its stone forms. In the background is the English Channel, with the Isle of Wight and The Needles on the horizon. Squiggles represent clouds and waves – a gestural touch reminiscent of the French post-Impressionist painter Raoul Dufy.