FRANK HODGKINSON AM

Studies: RAS School (with Sydney Long), Dattilo Rubbo Atelier, Sydney, 1936-38; Central School of Art and Craft, London, 1947-48; Academie Grand Chaumiere, Paris, 1948-50. He supported his studies with freelance illustrations for magazines and from 1954 painted full-time. He served in the AIF 1940-46 in North Africa, Syria and Kokoda trail, PNG, and as war artist covered the assault landings in Borneo. His interest in Goya drew him to Madrid in 1947 to which he returned in 1958 having won the Helena Rubinstein travelling scholarship. Then and again in 1963-67 found himself temperamentally in tune with the work of Canogar, Vela, Suarez, Tapies and other Spanish moderns whose spirit and example taught him to paint big, and experiment with the expressive possibilities of texture while escaping the dangers of 'belle matiere'. This period included exhibitions in Barcelona (1960, 61), Madrid (1962, 64, 66), London (1960-65), New York and LA (1961-62) as well as Australia and produced many admirable paintings. Since returning to Australia in 1971 he has concentrated on painting the remote areas of the country including the Coorong, Flinders ranges, Lake Eyre and the Kimberley, with Arnhem Land becoming an annual trip from 1978 to 1987, either alone or as leader of the artist-in-field scheme organised by the MAGNT. In 1987-89 he painted a series of abstract waterfronts exhibited in all state capitals and in 1990 undertook a safari on foot in Zimbabwe followed by an exhibition of resultant images in Sydney. he was artist-in-residence, National Arts School of Papua New Guinea, 1977, and Uni of Melbourne 1979, and published a number of diaries with illustrations, some in limited editions (as in Sepik Diary, Richard Griffin, 1982) and some in more general form (Reed Books 1985), and Kakadu and Arnhem Landers, Weldon 1987 (reprinted 1990, 1992).

Fran Hodgkinson's distinctive hand-written books with sketches and paintings, "Paris Sketchbook", "Kakadu and the Arnhem Landers", and "Sepik Diary", are direct experiences, the latter being compiled from a diary on patrol along the Sepik River by dug-out canoe whilst artist-in-residence at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1977. A monograph of his life and work by the Senior Curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Barry Pearce, was published in 1995 and a film about his working routine, the variety of media used, his collecting passions, his curiosity about the culture and aesthetic of both sophisticated and primitive societies was made in 1997.

He has recently completed a mural for the Westin Hotel, part of the heritage restoration of the GPO and the modern twin towers at No1 Martin Place. The work titled "The Spirit of Sydney" (City to Surf) is an expression of what Sydney, his birthplace, is: sky, harbour, ocean, sunlight and vitality. A series of paintings and etchings was developed along with that work. Their style is classic but modern, abstract but accessible. An example of abstraction counterfeiting realism - a collection of visual experiences, mystical in intensity and immediacy, abstract only in the sense that they are stripped bare of anything which might dilute that immediacy.