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| ARTIST: | Beatrice Seddon |
| DATES: | New Zealand 1889 - 1987 |
| TITLE: | The Franz Joseph Glacier, West Coast 1942 |
| MEDIUM: | Watercolour |
| SIZE: | 36.5 x 41 cm |
| REMARKS: | Signed |
| $NZ: | Category B |
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Beatrice Anna SEDDON (née Wood) New Zealand 1889 - 1987 Beatrice Wood was born in Christchurch on July 28th 1889. She attended Rangi Ruru Girls’ School in Christchurch and showed a great ability in art. At finishing school in England her quick mind was rewarded when she gained entrance to Oxford University. When the First World War broke out Beatrice was in England, so she joined the Aotearoa Club at Codford on the Salisbury Plains. This was a voluntary group who looked after the soldiers who had returned from France. Her diary of this time is full of impressions of people and her observations of beauty in the countryside all around her. During this time Beatrice continued to paint watercolours and was fortunate enough to receive lessons from Frances Hodgkins. Hodgkins painted the portrait Bea Wood with Dog around this time, painting Wood against an outdoors scene as opposed to her dingy studio, as Beatrice was a woman of the outdoors. An excerpt from Hodgkin’s diary describes her encounter with Beatrice in 1918: “The other day 3 nice girls, all from NZ, blew into the studio – Miss Denniston of Peel Forest – Barker – ditto and Beatrice Wood from Chch, a bright fair-haired girl with a fluffy dog in her arms. She wanted me to paint her a sketch of herself for her dad – William Wood – which I did……She is a masterful young person – of the nice sort, and I would like to adopt her”. A year later in 1919, Beatrice started to organise art classes, in which Hodgkins would teach. The classes were attended by small groups of women in a small village in Oxfordshire, and Hodgkins taught there for two months. Wood returned to New Zealand and married Tom Seddon, who was the Liberal Member for the West Coast, and son of Richard Seddon, the Prime Minister. She raised three children and continued to paint, teaching her children much about art appreciation. She was a long-time member of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts (1921 - 1972). Her work is represented in the Turnbull Library and at Te Papa (The Museum of New Zealand). |
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| Arrowtown Gallery
Ltd 2/40 - 44 Buckingham Street, Arrowtown 9302 P O Box 96 Arrowtown 9351, New Zealand Phone: +64 3 442 1755 |
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