Friday 10 March 2017

Howard Hodgkin, 1932 - 2017

Howard Hodgkin, Clean Sheets, 1982-84
Howard Hodgkin died on 9 March 2017.
Hodgkin was an idiosyncratic painter who claimed to "hate painting... It's always been agony"; he was an apparently abstract painter who insisted that he was actually "a figurative painter of emotional situations"
I have tended to fall in and out of love with Howard Hodgkin's (mostly) modestly-sized, richly-coloured, paintings on wood panels. It is 30 years since my first infatuation - inspired by his exhibition Forty Paintings at the Whitechapel in 1985. Occasionally, the sensuous richness of his colours has, like too much rich food, left me yearning for something more ascetic. However, at their best Hodgkin's paintings are thrilling and intoxicating hits of colour.
Absent Friends, an exhibition of portraits by Hodgkin will be at the National Portrait Gallery from 23 March - 18 June 2017.
Read a (very good) obituary by Michael McNay, and an appreciation by Mark Hudson; read five tributes. See more paintings on the artist's website.
(Click on images to enlarge.)
Howard Hodgkin, Bombay Sunset, 1972-73
Howard Hodgkin, The Moon, 1978-80
Howard Hodgkin, After Corot, 1979-82
Howard Hodgkin, Waking up in Naples, 1980-84
Howard Hodgkin, Patrick in Italy, 1992-93
Howard Hodgkin, Storm, 1996-97
Howard Hodgkin, Open the Door Richard, 1998-2000
Howard Hodgkin, In the Bedroom, 2004-05
Howard Hodgkin, Old Books, 2006
Howard Hodgkin, Morning, 2015-16

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