Marion Grace HOCKEN
Born in Zennor, Cornwall she was a student at Leonard John FULLER's St Ives School of Painting after beginning her studies at the Redruth School of Art and the Brighton School of Art.
A keen botanist and Fellow of the Zoological Society and the Royal Entomological Society, she specialised in paintings of flowers which were acclaimed at the Paris Salon. The WCAA inherited one of her scrapbooks, and with it some correspondence (mainly Christmas cards) with her friends and acquaintances.
Hocken was a founder member of the Penwith Society, along with Ben NICHOLSON and Barbara HEPWORTH. Her most controversial work was a painting, The Hollow Men: a visual satire on the community politics of St Ives which raised many eyebrows and aroused some ferocious animosity. She married Mervyn Paul in later life.
media
Painter who specialised in paintings of flowers
works and access
Works include: A Spring Pilgrimage; The Hollow Men (a painting satirising community politics of St Ives)
Archival Deposits: (Wrekin Trust) Hypatia files, including Stencil (black); Letters, sketches, personal diaries and other paraphenalia; and a small booklet featuring finely detailed pencil sketches of Irena, Mary, Joan and Helen (sic)
exhibitions
Falmouth Art Gallery Women Artists in Cornwall 1880-1940 1996
memberships
STISA 1942-49, 1952-58
Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall (Founder member)
references
The Tate (1985) St Ives 1939-64, Twenty Five Years of Painting, Sculpture and Pottery
Tovey (2003) Creating a Splash
(2009) St Ives: Social History (illus of The Hollow Men);
Wallace et al (1996) Women Artists in Cornwall 1880-1940 (Exhibition catalogue)