Howard Hodgkin London, UK, 6 August 1932-9 March 2017
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Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian -
Howard Hodgkin is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest painters and has occupied a central place in contemporary art for over half a century.
6 August 1932–9 March 2017, London, UK
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Hodgkin was born in London and during World War II the family moved to Long Island, New York. During three years he spent there he first saw works by such artists as Henri Matisse, Édouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard and Pablo Picasso. His visits to New York museums reinforced an early ambition to become a painter. Being back in England Hodgkin attended Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (1949–50) and Bath Academy of Art, Corsham (1950–54).
Always remaining independent, Howard Hodgkin never belonged to any school or group. In 1950s–1960s, at the earliest stage of his art path, the artist established subjects he’d work with throughout his career, such as personal stories, particular locations, and acts of nature. Artist’s colour composition always evoked memories of places and encounters and the sentiments associated with them. The use of colour in his early representational paintings was clearly inspired by the works of such artists as Max Beckmann and Emil Nolde.
In 1962, at the age of 30, Hodgkin had his first solo exhibition at Arthur Tooth and Sons gallery in London. His first retrospective was curated by Nicholas Serota at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, in 1976. He began to gain notoriety in the 1980es – representing Britain at the XLI Biennale di Venezia in 1984 launched him internationally. Receiving the Turner prize in 1985 confirmed his status of one of the most outstanding names in contemporary British art.
Back in the 1970s Hodgkin discovered a way to enhance his works’ exuberant energy. He abandons canvas for a framed wooden panel which he used as a surface entirely. If in the 1980s there are often recognizable “things” in his works: human figures, flowers, landscapes, boats, buildings. By the 1990s he was working mostly in monochromatic swipes and admitted that he restricted himself to only a few kinds of marks.
He was knighted in 1992, awarded the Shakespeare Prize by Alfred Toepfer Foundation (Hamburg) in 1997, made a Companion of Honour in 2003 and in 2014 became the first artist to be given the Swarovski Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon award. Howard Hodgkin’s paintings and prints have been the subject of major exhibitions all over the world. In 1995 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, presented a major retrospective which toured to Europe.
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Работы
Howard Hodgkin London, UK, 6 August 1932-9 March 2017
Undergrowth, 1998–2003Oil on wood200 × 242,9 cmFurther images
“I'm a representational painter but not a painter of appearances. I paint representational pictures of emotional situations.” – Howard Hodgkin The ‘Undergrowth’ comes at a time when Hodgkin created the...“I'm a representational painter but not a painter of appearances. I paint representational pictures of emotional situations.” – Howard Hodgkin
The ‘Undergrowth’ comes at a time when Hodgkin created the largest works in his significant body of art, but he has also introduced a new and darker note to his subjects. The work features a vibrant composition of gestural brushstrokes and richly layered textures, depicting a tangled forest undergrowth. The colors blend and bleed into each other, creating a sense of movement and dynamism. It is dominated by deep greens and black, surrounded by a contrasting hand-painted frame.
As the former director of the Tate Nicholas Serota has observed, this has the effect that in Hodgkin’s works ‘the frame is not something to be added as protection or separation once the painting has been completed’ but is an integral component of the work. (Nicholas Serota, ‘Introduction’ for the artist’s solo exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art 2006).Выставки
Howard Hodgkin. Paintings. Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, Jan 10–Feb 17, 2004Viewing RoomsNews
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