| Description | Hilda Margaret Hodge [1924-2013] was born in Salford and at the age of 6, moved with her family to Surrey. She progressed from Wimbledon Art College to the London Institute, where she qualified to teach secondary level art. She secured her first teaching post in Nottingham in 1946, followed by positions at schools in Hertfordshire and West London. In tandem with these teaching posts, she completed postgraduate Art Studies in Textiles at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and Social Sciences at London University, prior to undertaking a teacher training post at Dudley.
Margaret, as she was known, moved to Kirkby in 1954 to take up the post of Art Tutor at the Malayan Teachers’ Training College, Kirkby Fields. During the period that she taught at the College, Miss Hodge also had pastoral responsibilities for the young women in her tutorage. In 1958, Margaret left Kirkby to travel and work in Uganda, returning to Scotland in 1964 with her husband, Philip Whitaker and their young daughter. Margaret continued to create paintings and drawings which reflected her spirit of adventure, exploration and curiosity, whilst working in primary schools as a peripatetic art specialist.
Retirement in 1984 allowed Margaret to continue her exploration of Devon, South East Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean, creating vibrant paintings and sketches and capturing the beauty of nature in each place she visited and in 1987, she visited Malaysia for the first time, where she was reunited with many of her former students.
This collection features examples of Margaret’s notebooks, correspondence and work, including sketches of College life, portraits and vibrant designs. A prolific artist, her practice features formal compositions, delicate and detailed sketches, structural and colour studies of figures engaged in everyday activities, street scenes, landscapes, wildlife studies, flowers, trees and crafts. |