Howard Hodgkin: Biography & Artwork

Howard
Hodgkin

Forging his own path towards abstraction in 1960s Britain, Howard Hodgkin distinguished himself from his contemporaries in the Pop Art movement. We offer free and confidential valuations and market advice on any Hodgkin print, with zero obligation to sell. If you're looking to buy or sell original prints and editions, browse the artist's portfolio and enquire today.

Biography

Howard Hodgkin was an Abstract painter whose popularity extends beyond the 20th century constraints of the movement. His large-scale paintings, with their bold use of colour and brushstrokes, present deep colourful landscapes able to fascinate anyone watching. An apt printmaker, Hodgkin's art explored the expressive possibilities of the medium, pushing the boundaries of convention to include colour and texture on paper at a time when monochromatism was in vogue.

Born in Hammersmith in 1932, as a child Hodgkin was evacuated to Long Island, New York, during World War II. During this time, the artist spent his afternoons secluded within the walls of MoMA, and took a keen interest in the works of the School of Paris. He then decided, at the age of just five years old, that he wanted to be an artist. After moving back to the UK, Hodgkin ran away from Eton College and went on to study at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, and the Bath Academy of Art.

Hodgkin’s career took off in the 1980s. After being asked by fellow painter John Hoyland to exhibit at the Hayward Annual, Hodgkin represented Britain at the 1984 Venice Biennale and was awarded the Turner Prize in 1985. In 1992, Hodgkin’s passion for Indian art led to his being asked to design a mural for the headquarters of Charles Correa’s British Council in India. Hodgkin went on to be awarded an honorary DLitt from the University of Oxford, the Shakespeare Prize of 1997, and the first Swarovski Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon award. In addition, he was appointed a CBE in 1977, knighted in 1992, made a Companion of Honour in 2003, and a Trustee of the National Gallery.

Hodgkin’s works, which the artist describes as “representational paintings of emotional landscapes”, evoke the bliss of past memories and exotic travels. Far from simple abstract representations, Hodgkin’s palette and brushstrokes re-present on canvas and paper the artist’s most intimate world. For instance, in his Rain (1984-89), the brushstrokes themselves provide a frame for the picture-space, to highlight that the work of art is not a window into an imaginative space but an object to be emotionally engaged with.

Works like Put Out More Flags (1992) demonstrate instead Hodgkin’s innovative approach to printmaking. At first, this work appears to be another of his colourful oil paintings. On closer inspection, the viewer can see that it is a print, mimicking the effects of oil paint through clever layering techniques.

To this day, Hodgkin has had presentations in many high profile public galleries, from the Barbican to the National Gallery, MOMA and the Irish Museum of Art, which attest to his international recognition.

When Hodgkin first began producing paintings during the 1950s, he resisted the draw of Pop Art that was attracting many artists and instead forged his own path. His first exhibition, held in 1962 at Arthur Tooth and Sons in London, was a commercial failure, although his work was often praised by critics. 'His work has none of the drabness which is too frequently associated by modern artists with pretensions to intellect', Edward Lucie-Smith writes '…this is painting to be enjoyed – that is, providing your idea of enjoyment doesn’t rule out the occasional need to think.'
In the years prior to his emergence as an Abstract Expressionist, when he produced works such as Memoirs (1949), Hodgkin’s work took on a more angular form and featured legible figures and landscapes.
Hodgkin started buying Indian paintings as a teenager after being introduced to Indian art by his art teacher at Eton. This was the start of a life-long passion for Indian painting and India more broadly. Hodgkin made multiple trips to India during his life and collected paintings avidly, infiltrating his work most obviously in his colour choice. Hodgkin told David Sylvester in 1984 that his ‘main reason for going back to India is because it is somewhere else.’ This suggests that Indian culture represented a form of escapism for the artist, a view that is tied up with the prevailing legacies of British colonialism from the time.
Hodgkin was also influenced by many older artists in Britain like Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, who were loosely associated with abstract movements such as the St. Ives School.
Hodgkin’s impressive family tree features Bloomsbury group member Robert Fry, Thomas Hodgkin (who gave his name to Hodgkin’s Lymphoma), Luke Howard (who named the different types of clouds), and conductor Sir John Eliot Gardener. His father Eliot also won the Royal Horticultural Society’s gold medal, adding to the family’s collection of accolades. With such lineage, it is perhaps no wonder that Howard Hodgkin is one of the most decorated abstract painters and printmakers of modern times.
Earlier in his life, Hodgkin produced theatrical sets for performances by the likes of the Royal Ballet, and he later designed a commemorative stamp for the Royal Mail to mark the millennium and posters for many recent Olympic Games. Like many during this time in Britain when homosexuality was criminalised, Hodgkin felt pressured into a heterosexual relationship and married Julia Lane in 1955, having two children. Subsequently coming to terms with his homosexuality, Hodgkin left his wife and lived with his partner, Antony Peattie, for 20 years in Bloomsbury, London, until his death.
Hodgkin died in 2017 on the day his show 'Absent Friends' was hung at the National Portrait Gallery. He died in the middle of a creative streak, painting with long brushes and held upright by his assistants, despite using a wheelchair.
Hodgkin visited India for the last time a year before his death, where he produced six paintings which were displayed at the 'Painting India' show in Hepworth, Wakefield in 2017. In 2018, the Gagosian held an exhibition of more than 20 works entitled Last Paintings, which demonstrated the ultimate progression of Hodgkin’s style. Not only were many of these works produced on wooden panels sourced in India, but they also demonstrate Hodgkin’s bold colour and expression in their most stringent form.

Goodbye to the Bay of Naples by Howard Hodgkin sold as a part of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on October 6th, 2017. The piece was first exhibited as a part of Howard Hodgkin’s presentation for Britain’s pavilion at the XLI Venice Biennale in 1984.

Conceived in 1980-1982, it’s a perfect example of Hodgkin’s mature style and ability to capture complex memories and emotions through rich, gestural brushstrokes. Using a warm palette of yellows, reds greens and blues, the painting evokes the essence of the sun’s last rays shimmering on the Mediterranean sea through a style that oscillates between abstraction and figuration. In his characteristic, innovative style, the artist expands his painterly vision beyond the limitations of the canvas and incorporates its frame into the fiery landscape. Goodbye to the Bay of Naples had been previously acquired by its owner from the Barron Family Collection.