Cherry tree at 'The Croft', Bradford on Tone, Taunton, Print

Geoffrey Gorer wrote this of Cherry Tree at 'The Croft', Bradford on Tone, Taunton ‘The last time I saw her … she gave me a painting of my cottage with the flowering cherries and pear trees in bloom, a most lovely painting and almost the last she ever completed.’ Geoffrey Gorer wrote this of the work that Frances Hodgkins painted during her last stay at his cottage before she died.

Hodgkins' joy of the spring scene has been captured in her careful brushstrokes - dabs, swirls and swoops of colour. She has achieved a perfect harmony between texture and structure - the painting is almost abstract but holds a hint of something more. 'I think I've achieved it. Can you feel it? There's optimism, life and vitality - can you sense it?'

Te Papa purchased the original 1946 gouache painting in 2000 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds.