Born in England, she married Edward Martin Hopkins, a world traveller, in 1858. They travelled to Canada where her husband had a responsible position with the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was required to travel often and she accompanied him on his journeys. Frances Hopkins painted many genre scenes but also a remarkable series of paintings of voyageurs. Many of them were believed done during her trip with the Red River expedition of 1870 headed by Col. G.J. Wolseley. She sketched in oils and watercolours and her Canadian sketch books became the property of the Public Archives of Canada as did her exceptionally fine and detailed Canadian canvases. Most of her work was untitled but she did sign them with her initials F.A.H.
On the Red River expedition she was the only woman. Grave Lee Nute in her well documented and well illustrated article on the artist for ‘The Beaver’ described one of her paintings as follows, “One very appealing picture, which has been reproduced many times, shows a typical bark canoe, beautifully decorated in bow and stern, manned by eight voyageurs, passing the foot of a great shoulder of rock, down which runs a rill in successive waterfalls. A few spruces or balsams can be seen glimpsed above the rock. White water-lilies are attracting the attention of Mrs. Hopkins, for whom a voyageur is picking lilies, while Hopkins looks on, smoking his pipe. The whole conception of the picture is faithful to reality, yet most artistic. Even the reflection of the canoe and its occupants in the clear water of some northern lake is perfection itself.”
The Hopkins returned to England on his retirement sometime after 1870. They lived in London and later at Oxfordshire. Her husband died in 1894 and she died in London in 1918.
Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume II”, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1979
