Between 1910 and 1912, Frances Hodgkins and her students fled the airless milieu of Paris and established themselves in Concarneau in Brittany during the summer months.

Even there, the midday heat was considerable, and students and local families who had flocked to the beach were glad of the shade provided by the red and white striped beach umbrellas which lined the foreshore. Once her students had settled to their day's task, Hodgkins sometimes placed herself behind them, rapidly painting the groupings - the students and holiday makers in fashionably large straw hats contrasting with the traditional white caps of the local Breton women.

These compositional groups changed from day to day, hour to hour, the women either on their wooden slatted chairs or nestled on blankets, but always ready to move according to the sun, while little children played blissfully in the sand. In Picnic on a Beach (a descriptor rather than a title given by the artist) Hodgkins uses an economy of detail and rapid brushstrokes to capture the tight group in the foreground. The bold sweeping curves behind them (possibly a line of rocks) is almost abstracted, illustrating her gradual move away from an Impressionist dabbing technique. Hodgkins uses an economy of detail, yet each figure, once identified, is also individualised.

Essay by - Mary Kisler