The artwork used to produce the collotype Pumpkins, 1952 is that of the gouache Pumpkins and Pimenti (circa 1935) owned at the time by Sir Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery, and now held in the collection of The Fletcher Trust. With financial assistance from Rée Gorer and Dorothy Selby, Frances Hodgkins spent the winter of 1935 – 36 in Tossa de Mar where she painted the gouache Pumpkins and Pimenti.
Pumpkins and Pimenti was purchased by Sir Kenneth Clark, at that time a leading light in the British art establishment, and selected for the Penguin monograph on Hodgkins that Myfanwy Evans submitted for the artist’s approval before publication (Frances Hodgkins, 1948).
Ganymed Facsimiles reproduced original artworks in colour collotype of a sufficient quality “for display in Art Galleries, Museums, Universities, etc., throughout the world”. The company provided specially designed frames to enhance the works’ artistic effect, and the Tate Gallery was happy to put its name to them. Hodgkins was included in the second list offered, whose thirty-one artists ran from William Blake to Pablo Picasso.
The Ganymed Press were collotype printers based in London between 1947-63 (and for the two following years under Waterlow's collotype department).
The firm owed its origins to Ganymed Graphische Anstalt of Berlin, founded in the early years of the 20th century by Bruno Deja, a printer, and the art historian Julius Meier-Graefe, Director of Marées Gesellschaft. From 1951 onwards the firm produced original graphic work in collotype ('collographs') in which the artist worked closely with the printer.