Christine Hopkins
Thanks to all of you who enjoyed the Museum Highlights challenge at the ‘Then and Now’ exhibition, Reading Museum. Did you find them all?
There were actually works by eight past RGA Members on display, including R.E.G. Brant, G.M. Brodribb, Harold J. Yates, Alfred Rawlings and Peter Hay who have already appeared in our Museum Highlights, along with Albert Cooper, Susan Norman and Christine Hopkins who we are Highlighting here. The artist who could have caught you out was Christopher Hall, who sadly doesn’t appear to have been an RGA member. [Highlighted: November 2026]
Christine Hopkins (1919-2018)
Gouache
Date: About 1978
RGA member 1970 – 2010
Membership Secretary 1983-84
Vice-Chair 1984-86
Reading Museum Accession Number
REDMG : 1978.360.1
Bridge over the Kennet, Duke Street was originally exhibited in the Reading Waterways Exhibition in 1978. It shows the recognisable High Bridge (often called Duke Street Bridge) in the distance. High Bridge (a grade II listed building) crosses the River Kennet in Reading town centre and is the oldest surviving bridge that crosses the river. In the foreground we see the entrance to the now demolished Yield Hall multi-storey car park.
Christine started painting after the Second World War, and spent a year at the Regent Street Polytechnic. She exhibited for several years at the Mall Galleries. She worked part-time as an optical technician, and with a family of four this kept her busy. She later found time to act as the RGA Membership Secretary 1983-84 and as Vice-Chair 1984-86 to Robert Gillmor’s Chair.
Christine won the RGA’s Marie Dyson Award in 1991 with The Gathering and kept actively painting her enter life.
In February 2019 the RGA Council heard that Christine Hopkins had recently passed away; she would have become 100 years old in that summer! See Obituary in the RGA Annual Review 2018-2019 (Please link to page 13 in the Annual Review 2018-2019)
As member of the Reading Guild of Artists (RGA) from 1970-2010 Christine won the first ever Daler-Rowney Art Club Challenge Palette at the age of 77, with Bookstall, announced joint first for best single entry along with fellow RGA member Joy Morton. The University of Reading has a painting in its collection by Christine of Dr Elizabeth Edwards, Warden of St Andrew’s Hall (1967-–87).
This Christine is not to be mistaken for another artist of the same name, Christine Hopkins SGFA.