ABOUT
PERSONAL: Born April 1st, 1960, in London, England.
EDUCATION: Studied at St. Martin's School of Art, London, England, from 1985. Graduated in 1988 with a BA (Hons).
CAREER: Poet, author, artist She also worked as a waitress, as a clerk for the Collector of Taxes and the Ministry of Defense, as sales manager of a greeting card publishing company, and for an estate agency.
NOTES: Frieda Hughes’s first poetry collection, Wooroloo, was named after the tiny country hamlet where she lived in Western Australia between 1994 and 1998. This is where she wrote most of the Wooroloo poems. Frieda was drawn to Western Australia’s diverse landscape and open wilderness on a visit in 1988 and moved there in 1991. It proved to be a rich source of inspiration, both for her poetry and her paintings, until she returned to England in 1998. She lived in London until 2004, when the need for larger studio space persuaded her to move to Mid Wales.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS:
1986: Getting Rid of Edna (6 short stories for children) published in the U.K. by Heinemann Getting Rid of Aunt Edna was published by Harper & Row in the U.S. Illustrated by Ed Levine Published in paperback in 1988 in the U.K. by Pan Books Ltd. (Young Piper edition). Re-illustrated by Scoular Anderson.
1989: The Meal a Mile Long (a picture book for very young children) author-illustrated, published by Simon & Schuster in the U.S., Australia, and the U.K.
1990: Waldorf and the Sleeping Granny (a novel for 10–12-year-olds) author-illustrated, published by Simon and Schuster in the U.K.
1992: The Thing in the Sink (7-9 year olds) illustrated by Chris Riddell 2003, published by Simon and Schuster in the U.K. : Re-issued by Hodder Children’s Books.
1994: Rent-a-Friend (7-9 year olds) illustrated by Chris Riddell 2003, published by Simon and Schuster in the U.K. : Re-issued by Hodder Children’s Books.
1997: The Tall Story (7-9 year olds) illustrated by Chris Riddell 2003, published by Macdonald Young Books in the U.K. : Re-issued by Hodder Children’s Books.
2001: Three Scary Stories (three stories for older children) illustrated by Chris Riddell, published by Harper Collins UK.
ADULT FICTION:
1986: Keeper of the Keys (short story), published in the Canadian quarterly Exile.
ADULT NON-FICTION:
2023: Living With George (aka Magpie Madness: one woman’s experience of hand-rearing a mischievous magpie chick) to be published by Profile Publishing.
Frieda Hughes’s poems have also been published in The New Yorker, Tatler, The Spectator, Thumbscrew, The Paris Review, First Pressings, and The London Magazine, among others.
POETRY COLLECTIONS:
1998: Wooroloo was published in the U.S. by Harper Flamingo in 1999; by Fremantle Arts Center Press in Australia; and by Bloodaxe in the U.K., with author-illustrated covers. Wooroloo received a special commendation from the Poetry Book Society special commendation.
2001: Stonepicker, published by Bloodaxe in the U.K. and Fremantle Press in Australia. The author illustrated the cover. Harper Flamingo was published in the U.S. in 2005.
2006: Forty-Five published by Harper Collins in the US in December.
ISBN-13 978-0-06-113601-6
ISBN:-10 0-06-113601-8
2009:The Book of Mirrors was published by Bloodaxe Books in the UK in October. The author illustrated the cover. ISBN: 978-1-85224-851-2
2009: Stonepicker and The Book of Mirrors poetry collection published by Harper Collins in the US in May. The author illustrated the cover. (This double book includes Stonepicker which was not previously published in the US.) ISBN: 978-0-06-056452-0
2009: The Book of Mirrors was published by Bloodaxe Books in the UK in October. The author illustrated the cover. ISBN: 978-1-85224-851-2
2015: Alternative Values, published by Bloodaxa Books Ltd. in October, includes sixty poems and paintings by Frieda Hughes. ISBN 978-1-78037-266-2
2018: Out of the Ashes; selected poems – published by Bloodaxe books. The author illustrated the cover. A collection of favourite poems from four collections; Wooroloo, Stonepicker, Waxworks, and The Book of Mirrors.
EXHIBITIONS
1989: Group exhibition at the Chris Beetles Gallery, St James’s, London.
1991: Group exhibition with the Milne and Moller Gallery at Art Expo 1991, London.
1992: Group exhibition with the Milne and Moller Gallery at Art Expo 1992, London.
1993: Solo exhibition at the Anna Mei Chadwick Gallery, Fulham, London.
1993: Joint exhibition at the Delaney Gallery, Perth, Western Australia.
1993: Group exhibition at Perth Galleries, Perth, Western Australia.
1994: Group exhibition at the Gomboc Gallery, Middle Swan, Western Australia.
1994: Group exhibition at Gallery Savah, Sydney, Australia.
1995: Solo exhibition at the Provenance Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
1995: Solo exhibition at the Anna Mei Chadwick Gallery, Fulham, London.
1996: Exhibition at the Strand branch of Lloyds Bank in London, sponsored by Lloyds Bank plc.
1997: Solo exhibition at The Cork St Gallery, London.
1998: Exhibition sponsored by The Royal Commonwealth Society, London.
1999: Studio exhibition, London.
2001: Studio exhibition, London.
2002: Studio exhibition, London.
2003: Solo exhibition at the Soan Gallery, London.
2008: Studio exhibition in Wales.
2010: Solo exhibition, Gallery 27, Cork St, London.
2012: Solo exhibition, Gallery 27, Cork St, London.
2013: Exhibited at the Henley Festival.
2013: Group exhibition at the Francis Kyle Gallery, London.
2014: Solo exhibition at Halls Fine Art, Shrewsbury.
2015: Solo exhibition at Belgravia Gallery, London.
2017: Solo exhibition at Chichester Cathedral.
2018: Solo exhibition at The Chris Beetles Gallery, St James’s, London.
2021: Solo exhibition at The Chris Beetles Gallery, St James’s, London.
2002:
In June 2002, Frieda Hughes was given an invention and innovation award by NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts) for her project FORTY YEARS. This project was to produce forty abstract paintings that would be based on forty poems, one representing each of the first forty years of her life. The idea was to explore the emotional impact of each year on the canvas, while the poems would be the “key” to the abstraction. As the project progressed, Frieda added five more paintings and poems to bring the total to her forty-fifth year.
2006:
As of 2006, the poems are finished and the paintings are completed. The result is a four-foot-high, two hundred and twenty-five-foot-long painting in forty-five panels, which is an abstract landscape of the first forty-five years of her life.
Harper Collins (US) published the poems of “Forty-Five” in December 2006.
In 2015 and 2016
In 2015 and 2016, Frieda undertook an abstract oil painting a day for 400 days to reflect the contents of her diary and describe what happened in shape and color. Each canvas measured 10 inches by 14 inches (25 cm by 35 cm, approx. ), and the resulting collection was displayed as a “wall of color” at Chichester Cathedral, measuring 13 ft (3.9 m) high and 29 ft (8.7 m) long.
