HOWARD HODGKIN 1932-2017
The only way an artist can communicate with the world at large is on a level of feeling.
HOWARD HODGKIN (1932-2017) was a British painter known for his abstractions that were deeply embedded in the tradition of representational easel painting. Constructing pictorial space using expressive brush marks and lush colours, his works were almost painted on the backs of old picture frames - creating a tension between the painted frame and its ground. "It is simply impossible to control a large painting with the edge in the same way that you can control a small one," he once explained.
Born on August 6, 1932 in London, United Kingdom, Hodgkin and his family fled the war sometime between 1940 and 1943, and settled in Long Island, NY. Once there, the young artist studied the paintings of Stuart Davis, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which deeply influenced his work and inspired his lifelong explorations of the medium of painting. In 1984, he represented Great Britain in the Venice Biennale, winning the prestigious Turner prize in 1985. In 2016, despite being one of the most celebrated British painters for his generation, he told the Guardian, "I hate painting-most of the time it's irrelevant. It doesn't mean enough, ever, quite."
The artist passed away March 9, 2017 at the age of 84 in London, England. He was due to have his first exhibition of portraits titled Absent Friends at the National Portrait Gallery in London which opened on March 23, 2017. Hodgkin's works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate Gallery in London and other collections.
