The position is based at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and is awarded annually, providing studio space and stipend equivalent to a lecturer's salary.
[2] New Zealand writer David Eggleton described the fellowship as 'an emblem of cultural endeavour which … holds a legendary status in the public imagination'.
[5] In 2017 Otago University Press published a book by Priscilla Pitts and Andrea Hotere to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the fellowship, and held a commemorative exhibition simultaneously at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the Hocken Library.
[1] Illingworth had become notorious after a controversy the previous year over an Auckland gallery displaying Adam and Eve, which clearly shows the subjects' genitalia.
Illingworth's selection as the first of the Frances Hodgkins Fellows "reiterated that...the visual arts were an important form of communication founded upon the knowledge of professionals, not the criticisms and opinions of the general public.