Sir Howard Hodgkin

Waddington and Tooth Galleries, London, where acquired by Colin St John Wilson, 27th January 1977 for £1,250

London, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Howard Hodgkin: Recent Paintings, 21st January - 15th February 1964, cat. no.8;
London, Serpentine Gallery, Howard Hodgkin: Forty-Five Paintings, 1949-1977, 1st - 31st May 1976, with Arts Council Tour to Turnpike Gallery, Leigh, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen, and Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield;
Chichester, Pallant House Gallery, 9th Septmber 1998 - October 1999, on long-term loan from the collection of Colin St John Wilson;
Chichester, Pallant House Gallery, Highlights of the Wilson Collection, 1st October 1999 - 9th January 2000, where lent by Colin St John Wilson;
Chichester, Pallant House Gallery, Best of British: The Art of Drawing and Painting, 21st January - 19th March 2000, where lent by Colin St John Wilson;
West Sussex, Pentworth House, The Wilson Collection, 15th July - 2nd August 2000, where lent by Colin St John Wilson;
Chichester, Pallant House Gallery, Less is More: Large Works on a Small Scale, 29th September 2000 - 14th January 2001, where lent by Colin St John Wilson.

Norbert Lynton, 'Great High Spirits,' New Statesman, 31st January 1964, no.67, pp.179-80;
Bryan Robertson, John Russell and Lord Snowdon, Private View, Thomas Nelson and Sons, London, 1965, illustrated p.278;
'Howard Hodgkin,' Ark (The Journal of the Royal College of Art), Summer 1965, no.38 pp.18-21;
Caroline Tisdall, 'Howard Hodgkin,' Guardian, 27th May 1976;
Michael Auping, John Elderfield, Susan Sontag & Marla Price, Howard Hodgkin Paintings, Thames and Hudson, London, in association with The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, 1995, cat. no.48,  illustrated p.147.

The following condition report has been prepared by Stuart Sanderson (Painting Conservation) 69 Rylett Crescent, London W12 9RP. The painting has a thin and slightly uneven layer of either varnish or an oil film, with variations in the surface. There appears to be dirt trapped in the brushwork of the white form lower left. Some of the pinholes have been filled in the past which fluoresce under ultra-violet light, as does some retouching of the fine cracks in the blue form. There is a strip at the top that fluoresces, which has not been possible to determine conclusively whether it is restoring, or it relates to the oil/varnish layer - most likely a build up of oil or varnish has created the variation. Housed in a thin metal frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present lot.
"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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

'Some of them, like The Visit (1963), convey the tricks that memory can play: the retention of a particular detail that may not have seemed significant or remarkable at the time.' (Caroline Tisdall, commenting on the Hodgkin's exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, op.cit.)

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 manner 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, the use of simple shape, painterly surface and bold colour juxtaposition that leads the viewer into the image can be deceptively approachable. This is particularly true of his ‘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. As Hodgkin has commented: 'Ideally they should be memorials' (cited in: John Russell, ‘Hodgkin Colour Locals’, ART news 66, May 1967, p. 62).