Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
- Artist: Maggi Hambling
- Date: 1985
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 36 3/4 in. x 30 in. (932 mm x 760 mm)
- Portrays: Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin
- Museum: The National Portrait Gallery
- Collection record: The National Portrait Gallery website
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About this artwork
In this oil on canvas portrait by Maggi Hambling, we see Dorothy Hodgkin in her Warwickshire study, painted in 1985, surrounded by the tools of a scientist. She leans over a small model of insulin that sits on the table before her. The painter places two pairs of hands—busy, bent by arthritis, contracted since she was twenty‑eight—to suggest motion and energy. Above the scene, a file case holds papers; a book rests beside her. Hodgkin was the first British woman to win the Chemistry Nobel in 1964, celebrated for deciphering the structure of vitamin B12, penicillin and insulin.
See it in person
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin is in the collection of The National Portrait Gallery at St Martin's Place, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
