Anna Hotchkis facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Anna Mary Hotchkis
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 30 May 1885 Renfrewshire, Scotland
|
| Died | 14 October 1984 (aged 99) Kirkcudbright, Scotland
|
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Education | Glasgow School of Art, Edinburgh College of Art |
| Known for | Painting, Printmaking |
|
Notable work
|
The Nine Sacred Mountains of China with Mary Mullikin |
Anna Mary Hotchkis (30 May 1885 – 14 October 1984) was a Scottish artist. She was also a writer and gave talks about art. Anna Hotchkis showed her artwork in many places. These included London, Beijing, Hong Kong, and various exhibitions in Scotland. She was a member of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) and showed her art there from 1915 to 1968.
Contents
Early Life and Art Training
Anna Hotchkis was born in Crookston House, Renfrewshire, Scotland. She had three sisters, Margaret, Catherine, and Isobel. Isobel (1879–1947) was also a painter. Anna had six brothers, but only one, Richard, lived to be an adult.
Anna loved painting, just like her mother. She knew she wanted to be an artist from age 14. When she was 21, she started art school. This was at the Glasgow School of Art. Her parents were worried about her health, but she still went.
In 1907, her family moved to Edinburgh. Anna then joined the Edinburgh College of Art. She studied there for three years with a teacher named Robert Burns. She finished her studies but did not take a diploma. Around this time, Anna, Margaret, and Isobel went to Munich. They studied art there with Hans Lasker.
Her teacher in Edinburgh suggested Anna set up her own art studio. She found one in the small town of Kirkcudbright. She first rented it, then bought it from Jessie M King. Anna kept this studio from 1915 until she passed away in 1984.
First Trip to China
In 1922, Anna Hotchkis traveled to China. She went to visit her sister Catherine. Catherine lived in Mukden (now Shenyang). Since 1915, Catherine had started a girls’ school there for the YWCA. Anna's journey to China took her through the United States, Japan, and Korea.
After visiting Mukden, Anna spent three months in Shanghai. She held an exhibition of her artwork there. While painting children working in a cotton factory, she got very sick. She had to go back to Mukden and then to Peking for treatment. She decided to stay in Peking. She took a job as an art teacher at Yenching University.
Anna taught at Yenching for one year. In 1924, she returned to Scotland. She traveled on the Trans-Siberian Express to Moscow. There, she stayed with a Quaker mission. Then she went home to London through Berlin. She brought over 70 paintings back with her. She showed these at the Brook Street Gallery in London. Anna returned to China in 1926. She lived with a Chinese family in Peking. She stayed there until 1937, when Japan invaded China.
Adventures and Art in China
In July 1924, Anna was resting at her sister's holiday house. It was at a seaside resort called Beidaihe. There, she met an American painter named Mary Augusta Mullikin. They became good friends. After Anna returned to China, they traveled a lot together. They wrote several books and articles about their journeys. Their first trip together was to Japan and Korea in 1927.
In 1929, Anna visited her sisters in the UK. She traveled through Japan and Los Angeles. She came back to China the next year. In September 1931, she and Mary Mullikin visited the Yungang Grottoes. These are ancient cave sculptures near Datong in northern Shanxi province. They went back there the next June. They had an idea to publish a book about the Yungang caves. It would have their own paintings and drawings. From Yungang, they returned through Hangzhou and Putuoshan. Putuoshan is a sacred island and one of the Sacred Mountains of China.
Anna tried to find a publisher in England for their book in 1932. But she couldn't find one. While in London, she had another exhibition. It was at the Brook Street Galleries. This time, it included Mary Mullikin's paintings of the Yungang caves, as well as her own. A newspaper, The Times, praised their work. It said they were brave and talented. They focused on the art and history of the places they visited.
Eventually, they found a publisher in Peking, Henri Vetch. His company specialized in books about China. Vetch also suggested they travel around China to all the most sacred Buddhist and Taoist mountains. This would be for another book. A planned trip to Kaifeng and Luoyang in 1934 was canceled. This was because of fighting in the area. But in October 1934, the two artists spent a week painting on Mount Tai. This mountain is in Shandong province. It is a very important sacred peak for Taoists. This was Anna's first trip there.
In 1935, Anna moved into a house in Xie He Hutong in Peking. The house had been rented by Laurence Sickman and his mother. When Sickman went back to the US, his mother invited Anna to share the traditional courtyard house. In the spring of 1935, Mary Mullikin came to stay with Anna. They celebrated the publishing of their book about the Yungang caves. On August 27, they started a "pilgrimage" to the sacred mountains. They did this in two parts. The first was for two months in the autumn of 1935. They visited northern Heng Shan, Wutai Shan, and Hua Shan. The second part was for four months in the spring and summer of 1936. They visited Song Shan, Emei Shan, southern Heng Shan, and Jiu Hua Shan. On the steep slopes of Hua Shan, Anna, who was 50 years old, had heart strain. But after resting in Beijing, she was well enough to continue.
Returning to Scotland
In July 1937, the Japanese Army invaded the rest of China. They had already occupied Manchuria since 1932. Peking was taken in August. Anna Hotchkis sadly decided to leave China. She returned by ship through Japan, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, India, and Iraq to Greece. Another ship took her to Venice. From there, she took a train to Paris, and then back to London. She arrived in April 1938, about five months after leaving Peking.
Anna settled back in her studio in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. In 1940, she visited friends in Paris. She caught one of the last boats from France to England during the German invasion. Back in Scotland during the war, she worked for ten months. She was a supervisor in a factory that made cordite, a type of explosive. She retired due to health reasons and returned to Kirkcudbright to paint.
After the war, she traveled widely in Europe and North America. She also made two trips to Hong Kong. Henri Vetch had restarted his publishing business there. Anna and Mary Mullikin’s second book, The Nine Sacred Mountains of China, was finally published there in December 1973. This was 37 years after the journey it described!
Anna Hotchkis was active and showed her art almost until the end of her life. She passed away peacefully in Kirkcudbright in 1985. She was almost 100 years old. She never married or had children.
See also
In Spanish: Anna Hotchkis para niños
