Howard Hodgkin

Howard Hodgkin is a defining figure in Postwar British art. His daring abstract paintings often utilise broad, bravura brushstrokes filled with vibrant colour. The painter’s gestural style of paint application – which almost exclusively takes wood or paper as a substrate – often covers the frame, an ostentatious transgression of painterly traditions. His works show a debt to the likes of Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard, for example, who Hodgkin discovered in the 1940s, and from whom he would derive his distinctive use of colour. Hodgkin’s intention was, through his art, to express the intangible elements of the human condition: thoughts, feelings, and the fleeting of time.

Hodgkin was born in 1932 and studied at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts from 1949 – 1950, before going on to study at Bath Academy of Art from 1950 – 54. His first solo exhibition was in London, 1962. In the years following, the artist grew in popularity and began to stage international exhibitions. Hodgkin’s work was included in the 1984 Venice Biennale; the following year he was the recipient of the Turner Prize and a solo exhibition of his work was held at Whitechapel Gallery, London. In 1995-96, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Work, presented a groundbreaking solo exhibition of his work. In 2006, Hodgkin’s first retrospective was held at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, an exhibition which then travelled to Tate Britain, London, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. His works are held in numerous permanent collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The British Museum, London; Centro de Arte Moderna, Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; The National Gallery of Washington, D.C; and Tate, London, among others. Hodgkin died in London, 2017.