A Modern Masterpiece for £35? <br />Fake or Fortune?Series 13 Episode 3 of 6 <br /><br />Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould investigate a mysterious unsigned landscape that was snapped up at auction for just £35. Could it be a lost work by Frances Hodgkins, the trailblazing New Zealand-born artist who became one of the most original voices in British modernism? <br /><br />Art blogger Robjn Cantus was browsing an online auction when he spotted a group of pictures that caught his interest. He bought the lot for £35, shared images of the artworks online, and received an intriguing tip-off from a reader. They suggested that one of the mystery paintings could be the work of Frances Hodgkins, whose vibrant, avant-garde style helped reshape the British art scene between the wars. If it’s genuine, it could be worth as much as £50,000. <br /><br />Robjn turns to the Fake or Fortune team for help, but admits that his initial impression of the striking, colourful picture was that it might have been painted by a schoolchild. He has a hunch that the artwork was part of a postwar scheme called Pictures for Schools, which placed original art in classrooms to inspire young minds. But how Pictures for Schools could have acquired the painting remains a puzzle. With no signature, scant provenance and another name attached, Robjn’s picture poses one of the team’s most challenging investigations yet. <br /><br />Fiona and Philip follow a trail that leads from school archives in Hertfordshire to the gold mines of rural south Wales, and to a 1943 wartime exhibition in London, where Hodgkins exhibited her work alongside none other than Pablo Picasso. <br /><br />Working with leading experts in both the UK and New Zealand, the team turns to cutting-edge forensic analysis, including pigment testing carried out in collaboration with the Auckland Art Gallery - home to the world’s largest collection of Hodgkins’s work. But with little documentation and only a fleeting mention of Robjn’s picture on the same inventory page as Hodgkins’s name, is the evidence strong enough to convince the experts? <br /><br />The final call lies with Mary Kisler, the foremost authority on Frances Hodgkins. Could this schoolroom curiosity really be a £50,000 missing masterpiece, or just a case of mistaken identity? <br /><br />#fakeorfortune
