Author: Robjn Cantus

As part of my time on Fake or Fortune recently, we looked into the founding of Pictures for Schools and the Hertfordshire collection. So I thought I would make a blog post as both a little footnote to the show and of my Nan Youngman book.

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Pictures for Schools was a series of exhibitions where only councils could buy works by well known artists of the day. They ran from 1945 to 1969 and were all organised by Nan Youngman. After a council purchased a work it normally was sorted by the Library service and then loaned out to different schools by the council. They could be rotated each term from school to school.

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Nan Youngman was an artist who studied under Henry Tonks at the Slade School of Art and trained to become a teacher under Marion Richardson. Nan had worked as an art teacher in many girls schools until the Second World War, when she came to Cambridgeshire as her school was evacuated to Huntingdon. There she got a job working for Cambridgeshire County Council under Henry Morris, the pioneer of the Village College schools. Working with Morris at a Council and also with the Society for Education in Art in the 1940s, Nan Youngman was trying to pitch her ideas for getting paintings in schools.

She convinced Morris to invest in paintings by living artists and they bought a Lowry on behalf of the council to hang in schools, but Nan was looking for a wider audience under her job at the SEA.

These works were used in lessons with an information pack – so that a painting of a farm might be used to talk about farming, geography, people and their jobs, as well as in art lessons. Though I do go into all this in the book.

In support of having a scheme of having art in schools, Hertfordshire’s Chief Education Officer John Newton wrote to Nan Youngman in 1943, that the price of a professional painting was abohe waut 2 to 5 guineas more than a professional Medici framed print, adding

“I won’t repeat to you the advantages of originals over reproductions but, particularly in the teaching of Art, I think it is valuable for children to see pictures which are good and which do not look beyond their own capacity. For instance, children would feel at once that an [William] Orpen or a Russell Flint was quite beyond them because the technique is so finished, whereas Christopher Wood and [Ronald Ossory] Dunlop look as if they could be done by anybody even though they cannot.”

The first Pictures for Schools exhibition took place in 1947 with the support of the Arts Council of Great Britain. It was hosted at the Victoria and Albert Museum, who were still reinstating their collections from their wartime storage and so had space for this exhibition. The catalogue had text by Herbert Read, who wrote ‘schools can be made a little more ennobling in their atmosphere by the judicious display of original works of art’. The patrons and board of the SEA featured Clive Bell, Duncan Grant, Kenneth Clark and Misha Black. Councils were invited to buy works for their collections to hang in schools.

The picture selection committee for the first exhibition included Carel Weight, John Nash, Edward Bawden and Michael Rothenstein. The second had Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Clive Gardiner, Percy Horton, Peggy Angus, Rothenstein, Kenneth Rowntree, and Beryl Sinclair to name a few.

As I was finishing off the book off when the show was filming, I left text below out as the show transmitted after the book was published.

Hertfordshire County Council’s schools collection was established to collect contemporary works of art and craft by living artists, however in the early days of the collection, possibly in the late 1940s, a rare donation of four older works was made by the same mysterious donor. In 2019, when the council auctioned off their works, this donation was included. The four paintings were Cornstooks, by Vera Cunningham (who had been Matthew Smith’s model and prodigy); two Frances Hodgkin paintings, Flowers and Spanish Pottery (1928) and Still Life with a vase of flowers and eggs (1931); while the fourth painting [at the time of auction] was a mystery… It was an unsigned work on the front, it had been in a broken frame, so that when it was reframed, the details on the original frame and backboard were lost. Once back from the framers, it re-entered the Hertfordshire collection as an unknown work, later to be sold by an auction house, as a presumed Vera Cunningham.

However, thanks to Mary Kisler, a leading Frances Hodgkins researcher who worked with the BBC show Fake or Fortune, I can confirm this unknown painting is Frances Hodgkins’ – October Landscape, Entrance to Dolaucothy Mine (1943) which was exhibited at the Lefevre Galleries at the show ‘A new Series of Gouaches painted during 1942-1943’. Sadly, due to the Hertfordshire records for the collection being lost, no one can confirm who donated these four paintings and the Tate archivist Adrian Glew never got back to me.

 These exhibitions put Youngman in the centre of things, as Esther Grainger once wrote, “Nan knows everyone – that is, every painter, sculptor, and craftsman in Britain, and everyone concerned in art education from before the last war and for decades after it”. Her experience as a teacher meant she understood what was missing in schools, a link to creative and social element found in art.

As some of you might know, I recently was a contestant on the BBC show Fake or Fortune, so I thought I would give a little background to the painting I appeared with, as well as Frances Hodgkin’s time in the village of Pumsaint, Wales, that is known for the Dolaucothi estate that she named most of the paintings after.

Hodgkins was born in 1869 in New Zealand, educated at the Dunedin School of Art and took courses to become an art teacher. In 1901, she travelled to study at London Polytechnic and went to France to learn under Norman Gartstin and after studying and teaching at various places, became the first woman to teach at Académie Colarossi. All the time she travelled around Europe in a way that today might be normal, but in the interwar years was an expensive and challenging preoccupation.

She had spent the First World War in Cornwall painting and met Cedric Morris there. Though there was an age difference between them of twenty years, Morris and his partner Arthur Lett Haines became good friends of Hodgkins and gave her a home for several months when they moved to East Anglia.

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At the time Hodgkins came to Wales in 1942 she was 73. It was likely on the recommendation of Cedric Morris; but why she ended up in Pumsaint / Dolaucothi is a bit of a mystery, as it is very remote, being a small and handsome village 30 miles north of Swansea. We do know that her trip was to escape the war time maneuvers and air raids in Corfe, where she was living. She wished to be in a landscape that she could wander around without having to present her papers to officials, or worry that her work might be considered to be documenting government buildings, as what happened to Keith Vaughan when a painting he made had landed him in court.

Pumsaint is a beautiful village with a river winding around the valley. The chapel below had such fabulous gates out the front. Each post had a memorial to the men of the area lost in each World War.

On the other side of the road is the Dolaucothi Arms where Hodgkins stayed throughout her visit. Arriving there she was in bed for days with a cold and then as she recovered she started to paint the area at greater distances. Today the hotel is still open for meals and visitors.

‘I am here & really resting brain and body, wishing you were here … for a spot of mountain air & a spell of sketching before old winter sets in …To me it is paradise after Corfe. Fine country which will be better still in a week or so – harvest in full swing.

Frances Hodgkins – Letter to Dorothy Selby. 16 September 1942.

The Dulancothy Arms and it became the subject of a painting (below), pictured behind the shrub and two dogs.

During her stay in the village, she met art dealer (and later artist) Eardley Knollys, who was working for the National Trust and had come to visit the estate. It was likely him who told her of the estates lands and where the old Goldmines were. After he had returned to London, she wrote to him:

I have done masses of work in between showers of torrential rain, in and about the woods & river of Dolaucothy and have even seriously made pictures of the funny chimney ornaments, which do so lend themselves to decoration – I love them.

Frances Hodgkins – Letter to Eardley Knollys, manager of the Storran Gallery,
31st October 1942

_{As a footnote to Eardley Knollys: he later inherited a Hodgkins painting from her trip Welsh Farm (1942). Edward Sackville-West left Knollys his collection of works, now known as the Radev Collection.}

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It is rather hard to guess where the barn in the picture below is, with so many in the area, but as it was a ruined barn and around the time of 1943 it might be likely that they were the barns that stood behind the inn, that have now been pulled down. You can see them in the photograph above (right) as they made up part of the stables for patrons horses. The building in the background (of the modern photo) is a modern one that looks to be on the site of the other in the picture.

The Gold Mine

Between 70AD and 80AD the Romans began the first extensive mining of Dolaucothi creating large open-cast workings and digging several tunnels (adits) to exploit the gold veins. This period of mining will have altered the physical landscape of Dolaucothi beyond all recognition.  

National Trust – The Romans at Dolaucothi 

Dolaucothi Estate in Pumsaint is known for the Roman Goldmines; but they had closed in 1938 and and most of the machinery had been sold or scrapped by the time of Frances’ stay. The Goldmine was once part of a large estate around the village, but the family had died off after the First World War and by the time of the Second World War the main estate manor house had fallen into disrepair and the Ministry took over the property, and in 1942 it was given to the National Trust. Most of the manor house was knocked down in 1952 as was the fate of many large properties at that time.

The goldmine was up the road and in the hills from the village. There is a photo of it below, and a necklace made from the gold found in an excavation (now in the British Museum), but at the time Hodgkins was there, most of the machinery had been sold or scrapped for the war effort and it would have been a barren cut in the woodland.

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Since then, the National Trust have bought in similar items of equipment and buildings to make the it into a heritage centre and for people to learn about the work at the site. eg: the large excavator pictured below, was moved when another mine pit closed.

The view (below) from the location of the goldmines is quite high up above the main site with a beautiful vista of the valley through the trees, the Arms where Hodgkins stayed can also been seen.

If you have seen the show you will know we did find the goldmine, it was the fourth we inspected on the day. It had a beautiful stream of water flowing out of the entrance and down the side of the hill and is part of the Roman system of flushing out mines with water.

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Since the time of Hodgkins visit the entrance to the mine has been cleaned up a little by the National Trust and the wall there and concreate doorway were taken down to leave only the historic elements. This last shaft was the highest on the hill and in the early spring, lacked the foliage that appears in Hodgkin’s painting and the old soil spill had washed away. The angular cut of the roof however is the main identifiable element.

On the back of October Landscape was another painting, quite rare I am told. Sadly we didn’t have time on the show to look into the mysterious elements that make up this work, but I think it is likely to be either a farm or part of the abandoned mine buildings at the time.

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Building and Scrubs (1942) has many features similar to that of other works she was painting at that time. Hodgkin’s shared the similar Neo-romantic view of artists like Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious that ruined landscapes, farmyards and scrap yards were beautiful as seen in Broken Tractor below.

You will see that I am in Wales – in a green valley with a big G… reminding me in some ways of NZ. The weather is just filthy, but it is quiet & off the beaten track… While the weather was good I painted like mad – Did I mention that I am booked for a London Show in the Spring – January or Feb.

Frances Hodgkins – Letter to William Hodgkins, 22 October 2025
William was her brother and the exhibition mentioned took place in March-April

The work that Hodgkin’s made that had the most similar colour tones to October Landscape is The Water Wheel below, also painted while at the mine as the water was used to wash soil from the gold.

When historic mines were reopened in Rio Tinto, Spain, Rosia Montana, Romania, and Dolaucothi, west Wales, remnants of the water wheels used for lifting water were unearthed. 

Fouad Sabry – Roman Military Strategies, Tactics, and Innovations of Ancient Warfare (2024)

Hodgkin’s had got herself a contract to paint works for the Lefevre Galleries in London. They would supply her with money upfront, and she would paint works for exhibitions. As she became an alcoholic her paintings switched from oil to gouache and when the money ran out she started to paint on paper with less quality. Many of the later works were painted on a unusual papers – compared to what other artists were using. The other explanation is that during the war, large paper was getting harder to source in rural locations.

The works that were made in Wales and Purbeck where exhibited at the Lefevre Galleries in 1943 in a very successful show. Only three of the works had not sold: October Landscape, Trees and Ricks, and Broken Tractor.

So you might think that my story is over and there is nothing else to discover. Well not quite. In a mad whim I decided that I would take a chance on another work by Hodgkins, one very similar to the works she made in Purbeck. Like October Landscape.

The provenance was from the family of Mary Duckworth / Buxton / Hope. I think from my basic researches that this may be a relative of Thomas Hope who married Katherine (Kitty) Church’s sister Elizabeth.

Kitty Church married Anthony West (Son of Rebecca West & H G Wells) and Anthony and Kitty were painted by Hodgkins, and a solo portrait of Kitty by Hodgkins is now in the Tate. The search never ends but the painting is very similar to The Valley Mill (1930) and sold by Lefevre Galleries in 1942.

You can discover more about pictures for schools in my new book: Nan Youngman and Pictures for Schools.

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Here is an article on Fake or Fortune by Katy Prickett for the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4w997lpz7o

As some of you may know I am a contestant on the BBC show Fake or Fortune on the 4th August 2025 at 9pm. The iPlayer link is here with a bit more information on the show. You will have to find out if it’s a win or a dud. Either way, little money was lost.

Fiona Bruce and art expert Philip Mould investigate a potential missing work by trailblazing New Zealand-born modernist artist Frances Hodgkins that was bought for just £35 at an auction. The current owner believes it was painted for a post-war scheme called Pictures for Schools, that was intended to place works of art in classrooms to inspire pupils – which may have led to it being mistaken for a student’s work

My new book on Nan Youngman and Pictures for Schools is out now!

I have put some paintings of Julia Balls in an exhibition at the Gallery Above, Linton, Cambridge. 94 High St, Linton, Cambridge. The exhibition is small but a celebration of the life of Julia Ball, before a larger non-selling exhibition comes to Cambridge in a few months.

July 23rd to August 16th 2025
Opening hours 10:00 – 5:00 – Wednesdays to Saturdays

Julia Ball was born in Devon in 1930, and studied at the School of Art at Reading University where she studied printmaking. A lot of her early career was in printmaking and illustration. She then moved to Cambridge, teaching at the school of art and then became an examiner in the 1970s working with Warwick Hutton marking work. There were a large amount of prints made during the 1960s, of abstract architectural details and seascapes and she would also let other local artists use her printing presses to produce their work.

In Cambridgeshire Ball became friends with Nan Youngman and joined the Painters and Sculptors society. Early members where Cecil and Elisabeth Collins, Bettie Rea, and Elisabeth Vellacott. In this company and with Nan’s natural talent as a promoter from her years running the Pictures for Schools exhibitions, she helped make many of the local artists well known.

Julia’s work is deliberately atmospheric and to those familiar to her work, one gets to see the locations and places that became staples in her work. Places inspired her works in different ways, from the reeds and water pools and ditches of the Cambridgeshire Fens, to the beaches and dunes of North Norfolk.

Many of the Cambridge artists would holiday and paint plein air on the North Norfolk coast and Youngman used to take painting holidays there with friends. Some of Balls early painted works can be seen of beaches and dunes around Brancaster and Titchwell.

Ball then started to use the flatness of the landscape around Cambridge in a series of abstract colourful landscapes, partially in the fens. Into the 1980s, these landscapes were focused on the fenland waterways of Wicken Fen and Quy Fen showing the long ditches and fields in all weather conditions throughout the year. Ball would work painting watercolours and then taking them to her studio to be worked up into larger pieces. Throughout her career she has always used a very similar palate of colours that are mixed when painting.

In 1983 she visited the Greenham Common anti nuclear women’s camp. When asked many years later about her feelings she said “It was also a place where I think … you didn’t talk about it very much unless people asked you. It wasn’t something that you could personally claim pride in. I mean, I know, I thought I had to be careful, not careful, but I was aware that it was something deeper than that. You weren’t just being a heroine, or hero, it was more fundamental. And that sort of boasting about it would be detrimental to the whole thing. It wasn’t boasting, it was just part of your life.

Over her life she had many exhibitions, most notably including at the Bluecoat Gallery – Liverpool, 1978; Kettle’s Yard – Cambridge, from 1980 with the Cambridge Society of Painters and Sculptors; Karen Wright’s Hobson Gallery, 1982, University of Nottingham, 1986; New Hall College, Heffer’s Gallery and the Lynne Strover Gallery, Fen Ditton in 1994.

Below are some photos from Julia Ball’s studio in Cambridge – The house has now been sold and redeveloped.

The photograph below is by John Deakin and the painting is by Francis Bacon. The car in the background appears in the painting too and shows the painters model, Isabel Rawsthorne. Deakin was one of Francis Bacon’s friendships that survived his rages and drunken antics. He is now remembered for his street photography of London life but in his time he worked

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Isabel Rawsthorne was an artist and friend of Bacon and they had known each other since the late 1940s. Rawsthorne attended Liverpool Art School and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools. In London, she met Jacob Epstein, entered his household as a studio assistant and modelled for him. Determined to be an artist in her own right, she left London for Paris. In 1935, she met Alberto Giacometti and they became close friends, resulting in the first sculpture bust of her made in 1936. Isabel’s remarkable beauty was both an asset and a distraction from her own quest to become an artist and she frequently gained the attention of other artists who wished to paint her, notably Andre Derain and Pablo Picasso who both painted multiple portraits of her in 1936.

During the Second World War she worked in intelligence and black propaganda for a clandestine department of the British government. After the war, she briefly returned to Paris before settling in London and subsequently met Bacon and they became friends. They may well have met at the famous private members club The Gargoyle which was still popular with artists and writers in post-war London. Or perhaps they were introduced to each other by Erica Brausen of the Hanover Gallery, where both artists showed in the late 1940s.

Bacon used photographs taken by John Deakin as source material rather than working from life. He commented to David Sylvester that, ‘I find it easier to work than actually having their presence in the room’.

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The American artist Kathleen Ryan works with glass and plastic beads to make beautiful sculptures of rotten fruit. Born in 1984 her work is exceptional.

Ryan composes her sculptural installations in a variety of materials from cast iron and precious stones, to found objects including bowling bowls. The artist has a pre-occupation with natural forms, juxtaposed with industrial manufacture, and alongside motifs which reference the classical sculptural tradition and the artist’s interest in archaeology.

This is the original church that was in Biggin Hill. As the area grew in size the church needed to be extended and so they replaced it with a new one.

With limited funds, they decided to deconstruct a bomb damaged church in Peckham and move it brick by brick. The vicar Rev Vivian Symons got a lorry and worked to deconstruct the church. He soon gained a group of followers and volunteers.

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The deconstruction took three years, with a series of 125,000 bricks, the timbers and stonework, they hired Giles Gilbert Scott to design something new, with the remit of their limited resources.

The old window frames were taken and re-carved to make details for the bell tower. The timbers were recycled as seen in the picture below.

Other than new fittings of chairs, they also commissioned a new altar painting from Roland Pym, who is best known for his pop up book on Cinderella.

One of the aspects of printmaking that I love is how a work is layered and composed. This post focuses on John Minton’s design for the dust jacket of Time Was Away by Alan Ross. Minton’s paintings are bright and colourful and as a commercial artist he was known for his Neo-romantic drawings and scratchy ink style.

The colour layers of this cover are made up of three inks, a yellow, a blue and black, with the first two being layered to make green and save money with the printing process.

This is a movie that is rather hard to come by, but has made it way on to youtube. It was suggested to me by a friend and it is remarkably camp but good in my view.