Undreamed of ... ― 50 Years of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship

In 1966 Michael Illingworth, whose oil painting Adam and Eve appears on the front cover of this book, was awarded the inaugural Frances Hodgkins Fellowship. For the first time in New Zealand a practicing artist was given a studio and paid a salary to make art for a whole year. Fifty years later, the Frances Hodgkins is still going strong, one of five arts fellowships offered through the University of Otago’s Humanities Division. This sumptuous book brings together the art and the stories of half a century of Frances Hodgkins fellows. Arts commentator Priscilla Pitts writes about their work, while journalist Andrea Hotere interviews the artists about their lives and sources of inspiration. The result is a vibrant celebration of the talent fostered through New Zealand’s foremost visual arts residency.

Andrea Hotere is a writer with a background in historical research and investigative journalism. She began her career at the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, before working at the BBC in London, and in New Zealand on various publications including the Sunday Star-Times and New Zealand Education Review. She has also written for magazines, researched and produced award- winning television documentaries and edited a book on architecture. She has a life-long interest in art, and lives in Auckland with her family. Priscilla Pitts has had a long career writing about the visual arts, with a particular focus on contemporary New Zealand art. She is the author of Contemporary New Zealand Sculpture: Themes and issues and a founding editor of Antic, a journal of arts, literature, theory and criticism. She was formerly director of Artspace (Auckland), the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (New Plymouth) and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Toitu¯ Otago Settlers Museum. More recently she was General Manager Heritage Destinations at the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (now Heritage New Zealand).