Painting by New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins worth $100,000 goes undiscovered for years

A painting by pioneering New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins, which was bought at a council auction in the UK for a bargain basement price, has been valued at $112,787 (£50,000).

In a recently aired episode of BBC arts programme Fake or Fortune, the artwork belonging to art blogger Robjn Cantus was examined to ascertain its origin and verify its authenticity after being picked up in a council art sell-off.

Cantus told the show he purchased the work for $78.95 (£35) in a Hertfordshire County Council auction when the council sold off its mid-20th-century art collection in 2019.

At the time, the work was in the same lot as another painting, which was the one he wanted, and stored in a barn for the past six years.

The artwork is believed to be painted by a 73-year-old Hodgkins when she was in Wales and depicts an old Roman goldmine, reported the BBC.

It was when Cantus posted a picture of the work on his blog and someone contacted him to say they thought it was a Hodgkins that he attempted to verify the claim.

The work was verified during the episode by Kiwi Mary Kisler, who is the foremost expert on the painter.

“I emphatically think it is by Frances Hodgkins,” she told the programme.

Presenters of the BBC television programme Fake or Fortune, Fiona Bruce (left) and Philip Mould with the Frances Hodgkins painting which was investigated on the show. Photo / X / @philipmould

The art historian and curator, who joined the programme via video call from Auckland, said she wondered if the painting was a lost artwork of Hodgkins’ called October Landscape.

Art expert Philip Mould, who co-presents the show, said Kisler’s verification justified the £40,000 to £50,000 valuation.

On Facebook, Mould posted the “entirely overlooked landscape is in fact a masterwork by the fascinating New Zealand-born modernist Frances Hodgkins”.

Despite the hefty price tag, Cantus said he did not intend to sell the piece, but rather hang it up in his home.

“I don’t have any idea where I’m going to put it but I’ll find a space somewhere.”

Another painting was on the reverse of the artwork, which Cantus believed was also a Hodgkins.

Frances Hodgkins in her Bowen St studio c1905. Photo / Field Collection Trust

In 2016 two of Hodgkins’ oil paintings, Ibiza and River Boats, sold for nearly half a million dollars at an auction in Auckland.

Hodgkins spent most of her working life in the UK and across Europe.

Her work, which was often abstract and boldly coloured, earned her a reputation as one of Britain’s great modernists.

Born in Dunedin in 1869, she studied at the Dunedin School of Art before leaving to travel Europe in 1901.

In 1903, Hodgkins’ watercolour Fatima became the first work by a New Zealander to be hung at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

After a brief return to New Zealand, she went back to the UK, where she continued to paint, hold shows and teach art.

Hodgkins was working up until her death in Dorset, England, in 1947.