Spinning

Maud Sherwood was a wonderful watercolourist. Here she makes full use of the fluidity of the paint, with loose brushstrokes and blended colour giving movement and life to the figure of the woman and her spinning wheel.

Sherwood was born in New Zealand but spent most of her life as an artist in Europe and Australia. The art historian Ann Calhoun suggests that her preference for watercolour over oil is likely to have been inspired by Frances Hodgkins’ success with the medium. There is something of Hodgkins’ early style in this work, particularly in the sweeping brushstrokes around the woman’s skirt.

Sherwood painted this watercolour in 1913. That year she had spent time in Brittany and the Netherlands. She was fascinated by the regional life and customs of both places. We don’t have a record of who this woman is, but she could have been painted in Brittany – Breton women traditionally wear folded cloth caps and white collars of this kind.

Reference: Ann Calhoun. 'Sherwood, Maud Winifred', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1996, updated May, 2002. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3s14/sherwood-maud-winifred (accessed 18 January 2023)