JANE PICKERSGILL

Hodgkin became acquainted with miniatures whilst studying under Wilfred Blunt (brother of Anthony) at Eton, which by all accounts was not a happy experience for him.  Blunt left him a persian painting in his will,  and he didn't much like it so he sold it to collect his preferred style of artwork.

​

As a teenager, he hated being back in England after his wartime evacuation to Long Island, where he had revelled in seeing Picasso and Matisse at the Museum of Modern Art. It is probable that around this time he first fell in love with another major influence; Vuillard. In interviews Hodgkin is vague about the dates of these seminal occurrences, chronology doesn't interest him. However,  it is probable that Blunt encouraged Hodgkin to paint in a vaguely fauvist manner and certainly the unconventional styles of this movement would seem to offer him a release from the prevailing restraint in both colour and mood. At the time The Euston Road - Camden Town Movement was still influential in England up to and even after Hodgkin enrolled at  Camberwell School of Art around 1948/9. Hodgkin hated the dreary colours of this movement even though he appears to have shared the same enthusiasm for painting interiors. 

 

In relation to his passion for miniatures it is not easy, at first glance, to see a connection between the formal, highly detailed  scenes of Indian court life and Hodgkin's own graphic, gestural work. Then you come to realise that there is often a common, sometimes claustrophobically compressed space, flattened perspective and glorious bursts of colour and pattern which do not necessarily 'belong' where he has placed them. Internal spaces and memories of meetings feature heavily in Hodgkin's art, as do gardens; another feature of the Mughal works.

​

Like Vuillard he responds to intensely personal subject matter,  domestic scenes, familiarity with the protaganists (friends and family), interior viewpoints. Gazing out,  Hodgkin paints the window, terrace or room - with a view.

  

In the gallery below is Hodgkin's (alleged) first painting on wood titled Indian Subject (Blue) from 1965-69. This was not in the Hepworth show - along with it's partner piece Indian Subject (White and Blue) to which previous volumes cannot attribute an owner. Given that Hodgkin himself cajoled many private collectors to lend to this show it is a striking omission.   Immediately obvious is similarity of  colour and tone to the Mughal painting, not to mention the subject matter: which has been described by the artist as sitting on a terrace (in Kishangarh), listening to music. There is  also  influence of the flattened composition and the hint of  Matisse in colour, shapes and the outline of simplified forms.

​

Indian Subject (Blue) captures a fleeting moment of a specific short time duration. This is in contrast to the time the artist works on a piece; which usually takes several years. The duration of his painting process was one reason that Hodgkin states he moved from canvas to board, so that he could work on it over and over again. Essential to the process of working from memory is  repainting and he felt that canvas was not the medium for this and thus switched entirely to using wood panels in the 70's. Especially notable in this exhibition is the emphasis on framing, and its  incorporation into the composition, a signature of Hodgkin's work. The frames are part of the composition. He paints over them, creates another 'painted' frame within their enclosure or offers illusionistic effects by painting the internal reveal with another colour. Sometimes he ignores them altogether, using them as simply part of the surface not a separate entity to the artwork but totally integral.  

​

Perversely, given this trademark, the last works he made  have no frame whatsoever. Some are untreated  wood panels - with the edge of the marks framed by oil seepage into the wood. The works are small in size but the brush strokes are large, with, to all appearance, several colours mixed on the brush in one stroke. Hodgkin might have achieved this with Liquin which he described becoming familiar with only in maturity. Many of these later works (starting with Arriving of 2014, and including Now and Hello Bombay of last year) feature larger areas of bare wood than previous paintings. Possibly this might be due to expediency, Hodgkin wanting to work more speedily, due to knowledge of his illness. Alternatively one could view it as a wish to  leave the paint-marks room to breathe. This would be in keeping with previous expressed desires to hang his work with a large space between paintings - so that they do not detract from each other. In these latest works one is also reminded of the specific rawness of materials. The bare wood adds a certain quality of  fragility, or delicacy, of a need to protect something. Given the readiness of Hodgkin to display his emotions (when discussing his work) this may not be an altogether fanciful idea.  What is certain is that up until his last weeks he was working in new ways and more prolifically than ever before. This exhibition serves as a mini retrospective of his development and his accomplishments as an artist. 

​

Back to Professional Showcase 

Back to Skillset