Lot 206
  • 206

Howard Hodgkin

bidding is closed

Description

  • Howard Hodgkin
  • Girl in Bed
  • signed, titled and dated 1965 on the stretcher 
  • oil on canvas
  • 71 by 92cm.; 28 by 36¼in.
  • Executed in 1965.

Provenance

Arthur Tooth & Sons Gallery Ltd., London
Saatchi Collection, London
Sotheby's, New York, 30th April 1991, lot 18

Exhibited

Lausanne, Château de la Sarraz, 5 Peintres, 5 Pays, Prix International de Peinture, 1965, no.18;
London, Arthur Tooth & Sons Gallery Ltd., Howard Hodgkin: Recent Paintings, 1967, no.1, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue;
Oxford, MOMA, Howard Hodgkin, Forty-Five paintings 1949-1975, 1976, no.18, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p.40, with tour to Serpentine Gallery, London; Turnpike Gallery, Leigh; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne; Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen and Graves Art Gallery Sheffield.

Literature

Anon., 'Howard Hodgkin' in Ark: The Journal of the Royal College of Art, Summer 1965, p.20, illustrated in colour;
Anon., 'On Exhibition' in Studio International, March 1967, p.157, no.12, illustrated in colour;
Nigel Gosling, 'Heroic Pessimism on a Bicycle' in Observer, March 1967, p.25;
Harold Osborne, 'Howard Hodgkin' in Art Review, 14th May 1976, p.239;
Alistair Hicks, New British Art in the Saatchi Collection, London 1989, p. 49, no. 30, illustrated in colour;
Michael Auping, John Elderfield and Susan Sontag, Howard Hodgkin Paintings, Catalogue Raisonné, London 1995, p. 148, no. 54, illustrated.

Condition

This canvas is unlined. There is a tiny repaired tear in the lower right quadrant, approximately 2cm. in length. There are networks of fine and stable hairline cracks scattered in places throughout the composition. Towards the bottom right hand corner there is a feather crack approximately 20cm. long with an associated tiny spot of paint loss and two further minute spots of paint loss towards the top right hand corner. There is a shallow indentation with some associated fine and stable hairline cracks towards the centre of the left hand edge. Towards the bottom left hand corner there is a small impact crack to the left of the green triangle. Examination under ultra-violet light reveals a tiny spot of retouching to the tiny tear in the lower right quadrant, mentioned above. There is no sign of retouching under ultra-violet light. Held in a rectilinear dark wooden frame. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 5381 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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Catalogue Note

Hodgkin's paintings of the early 1960s mix abstraction and figuration in a way which, even within the eclectic spirit of British painting of the time, show a manner of individual expression that is at once entirely his own. Greatly concerned with a form of painting that combines the snapshot image of recalled memory with a suggestion of form, much of his work of this period remains suggestively readable, frequently aided by the apparently matter of fact and descriptive titles. However it is often the use of simple shape, painterly surface and bold colour juxtaposition that leads the viewer into the image. This is particularly true of his figurative and 'portrait' paintings, works in which the references to the subjects are frequently hidden under layers of visual metaphor. The suggested intimacy and familiarity of these paintings, again partly created through the artist's titling, is a vehicle for a painting of sensation, a hint of the spirit and feeling of an event or an individual.