Frances Irwin Hunt, 1890-1981, born in Cambridge, the daughter of Nicholas Irwin Hunt and Ann Lilian Hunt (Souter). Educated at Malmerley Collegiate School in Parnell, moved to the Hunt farm at Paemako, near Te Kuiti, which she ran from 1909 after her father's death and while her brother William was serving overseas in WWl. She was a prominent member of the Auckland Society of Arts who trained under Frances Hodgkins. During the 1920s she produced numerous romantic, topographically accurate watercolours of picturesque spots around Auckland, and exhibited them at the Auckland Society of Arts, of which she was elected a working member in 1924. The following year she was elected to the National Art Association of New Zealand. In 1927 Hunt left New Zealand with her mother and brother Francis for an extended European tour. They visited the major art galleries, but exposure to foreign influences apparently had little impact on Frances's painting. Soon after her return to Auckland, however, she experienced doubts about her artistic direction. Possibly fearing stagnation, she ceased exhibiting watercolours at the Society of Arts and in 1932, at the age of 41, enrolled in the Elam School of Art's three-year full-time course. There Hunt was taught by A. J. C. Fisher and John Weeks. The latter, whose work she particularly admired, became her mentor, teacher and friend. Rejuvenated by her time at Elam, and increasingly confident of her ability, Frances Hunt threw her energies into painting professionally. She added a large studio to the Ranfurly Road house, recommenced exhibiting at the Society of Arts, and was a prominent member of the Rutland Group, which was made up of former Elam students. Over the next decade Hunt painted continuously. Now working in oils, she continued to favour landscapes, but her repertoire included still lifes and portraits. She painted at Taupō, Rotorua, Waikaremoana and, most often, near her childhood home in the King Country, working up sketches made on these trips in her studio at home. Hunt's artistic ability and public profile reached their height in the late 1930s and 1940s. In 1940 her work was included in two national centennial exhibitions celebrating New Zealand art, and she was awarded the Bledisloe Medal. She experimented with abstraction through the 1950s and 1960s, but by the time of her 1975 retrospective exhibition at the Auckland Society of Arts had stopped painting. She never married, and in later life lived alone in her cluttered Epsom home with two cats and an ever-increasing brood of bantams. She died there on 25 August 1981, aged 91. Throughout her life Hunt had supported local artists, particularly women, by purchasing their work. She left this valuable collection, and her own paintings, to E. H. McCormick and his sister, Myra. They later sold them and donated the proceeds to the Māori Education Foundation to fund an award for aspiring Māori students of performing or cultural arts.