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are over a Patrick Caulfield: sketchbook There dozen sketchbooks remaining in the studio, and are are more they from all periods (there also many loose drawings, now for 'Still life: fashion' all in the process of being sorted). How many drawings exist is drawings spring difficult to judge at this stage,but from a conversation that the artist recorded with Bryan Robertson, probably in the late 1980s,we can SARAH WHITFIELD assume a are to by that significant number still be found. Robertson asked Caulfield ifhe made sketches for his paintings, towhich the painter repHed: 'I used tomake very detailed drawings from various Patrick caulfield sources so a died in September 2005. Shortly before his that I would have picture and then square it up in the was to see manner cover canvas death, he able the pubHcation in June of the firstmajor traditional and the with polythene and then monograph on his work, a book on which he had enthusiastically square thatup with felt-tippen and then transferthe drawing to the even unseen trace on to canvas so collaborated, allowing pages from his previously polythene with the felt-tip pen and then it the sketchbooks to be used as was a was additional illustrations.1 This surpris that the image with only few minor alterations estabHshed. But ing because itwas well known thatCaulfield was reluctant to allow I have changed completely to startingwithout a positive idea how anyone into his studio, and if the studio is a stricdyprivate place, a the imagewill turnout and simplyby choosing an area of the paint so. an in a sketchbook is hardly less Until then, his only drawings to be ing estabHshing object and then from there, way rather Hke ones a canvas shown pubHcly had been either very early (the suite of studies putting jigsaw together adding other elements until the a he made for Portrait ofJuan Gris of 1964,which had been acquired becomes whole'.3 The change in method Caulfield speaks about owner was to by the of that painting, CoHn St JohnWilson, and shown may have taken place around 1988. It then that he began in at or part Pallant House, Chichester, in 1997),2 very late (Lamp compose his paintings in a markedly differentmanner by simpHfy a series of in some were out a studies, pencil drawings made 1991, of which ing the various elements and laying them against uniform included in his exhibition atWaddington Galleries, London, in background colour in a way that does indeed suggest the initial 2002). His laterwilHngness to let others in on the sketchbooks was placing of the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle: for example, Reception of no doubt due to a wish that the projected monograph should look 1988, The blueposts and Lounge, both of 1989. However, he may to an as and feel very different from the exhibition catalogues that, until have been referring earHer stage for, Marco Livingstone has a career then, had been virtually the only record of spanning forty argued, 'the compHcations of Caulfield's paintings from the mid . five years. 1970s onwards dictated changes in his way of working'. At that 64. Still life:spring fashion, by Patrick Caulfield. 1978. Acrylic, 61 by 76.2 cm. (Private collection). 3 I am grateful to Janet Nathan and Leslie Waddington for help in the preparation of '"Chicken Kiev by Candlelight", Patrick Caulfield in conversation with Bryan this article. Robertson', a tape (with accompanying slides) made in the series 'ArtistsTalking' by 1 M. Livingstone: Patrick Caulfield: Paintings, London 2005 (to be reviewed in a Lecon Arts. The tape isundated, but theT?te Archive records its copy as having been future issue of thisMagazine). produced 'between 1988 and 1990'. 2 The Art ofDrawing was shown at Pallant House, Chichester, May?June 1997. THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE CXLVIII MARCH 200? 203 This content downloaded from 81.130.200.251 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 10:11:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SKETCHBOOK DRAWINGS BY PATRICK CAULFIELD 65. Page from sketchbook with studies for Still life:spring fashion (left) and for cm. Still life:autumn fashion (right), by Patrick Caulfield. c.1978. Pencil, 23 by 35.5 (Artist's estate). time the artistmoved away from making detailed drawings which were to to squared up and transferred the canvas, preferring work in a more fashion 'two or three elements pragmatic by combining 66. Studies for or The as makes was to estabHsh styles'. result, Livingstone clear, 5?i7/ life:spring the final image slowly through preHminary drawings rather than fashion, by Patrick Caulfield. out the in advance.4 c.1978. mapping composition Pencil and The sketchbooks are in that show particularly interesting they coloured crayon, cm. another, earHer stage in the process. Before making the 'very 35.5 by 23 detailed drawings from various sources' (veryoften illustrationsthat (Artist's estate). Caulfield had found in books, magazines or brochures), he began by sense making rough sketches of various elements in the painting and, very is connected through Hne, itmakes that the painting would occasionally, of thewhole composition. How consistendy he did only find itsfinal form as he worked on the canvas. (Later,Caulfield as was to almost on the canvas at the this is impossible to tell, especially a number of the drawings in compose entirely itself, beginning the studio sketchbooks do not relate to known paintings, and those right-hand edge andworking across, oftenwithout any idea of how that do, do so in a fairlyunsystematic way. Nonetheless, those the composition would evolve.)6 sketches that can be identified suggest that his practice of making The startingpoint for Still life:spring fashion seems to be the undu a rough drafts for a composition began in themid-1960s and con latingHnes of thewallpaper pattern (Fig.65), the startof theme that career. nature came tinued throughout his The random of the sketch to dominate Caulfield's paintings of 1978 and 1979, culminat books suggests thatCaulfield did not make a point of keeping all the ing in themagnificent orchestration of loud geometric wallpaper ideas for one painting together. Presumably he also made use of and carpet design with an unstructured riot of autumn foHage in whatever paper happened to be at hand, inwhich case the chances Town and country(1979; private collection). Although these sketches a of drawings being lost, mislaid or never kept are substantially relatemosdy to Still life:spring fashion, preliminarymapping-out increased (the task of tracing all the drawings for any one painting of the insistentwallpaper pattern of itspair, Still life:autumn fashion may now be near impossible). (1978;Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), is found on the right-hand was A series of studies relating to Still life: springfashion of 1978 side of the sheet.That he already thinkingof the two paintings on (Fig.64), found in one of the sketchbooks,* is unusually complete, as a pair isborne out by a pencilled inscription another page (not and allows us to follow the development of the composition from reproduced): 'Seasons fashions/ Spring fashion/Autumn fashion'. to what appears to be the tentative early stages the confident arrangement of the still lifeof the tide: a dish of potatoes, a vase and a brown jug, finishingwith a trial run for thewhole composition. These pencil drawings (around forty, some ofwhich are extremely cursory)are spread over fifteenpages, interruptedby other unrelated sketches, some of them studies for prints.The absence of any sketch of the composition as itfinally appears supportsLivingstone's obser vation that the completion of the image took place on the canvas as much as in the detailed drawings. Given Caulfield's practice at this time of outlining his forms in black so that thewhole composition 4 See Livingstone, op. dt. (note i), p.83. 5 'Bushey' Sketch Book, no.3, 3 5.5 by 23 cm., manufactured by C. Roberson & Co. Ltd, Artists' Colour Makers, London. 6 Information from Janet Nathan, December 2005. 7 The books are R. Cogniat: Georges Braque, New York 1976, inwhich Artist and model is repr. on p. 135, and P. Heron: Braque, London n.d. [1958], inwhich The duet 67. Study for Still life:spring fashion, by Patrick Caulfield. c.1978. Pencil, cm. is repr. on p. 15. 23 by 35.5 (Artist's estate). 204 MARCH 2006 CXLVIII THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE This content downloaded from 81.130.200.251 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 10:11:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SKETCHBOOK DRAWINGS BY PATRICK CAULFIELD LETTER TO THE EDITOR 68. Study of dish of potatoes with fish for Still life:spring fashion, by Patrick 69. Preliminary study for composition of Still life:spring fashion, with unrelated Caulfield. c.1978. Pencil and oil, 23 by 35.5 cm. (Artist's estate). sketches of female heads and a nude, by Patrick Caulfield. c.1978. Pencil, 23 by 35-5 cm. (Artist's estate). The clock in itshexagonal frame appears at an obHque angle on (and for its companion piece) was thework of Braque. Caulfield's one of the firstpages (Fig.66), alreadywith the green face ithas in high regard for theCubists iswell known, beginning with his 1964 the painting (the few colour notes jotted down on these pages, for homage to Juan Gris, but as his paintings became more complex, so example, 'red yellow green' written above the study of the wall did his appreciation of the complexities of Cubism and, in particu were not paper, Fig.65, acted upon). Below that sketch in coloured lar,of Braque's interiorsof themid-1930s. The attention paid to the on same an crayons, the page another incorporates the clock within shapes of the pattern inmany of the drawings in the sketchbook in interior and is seen from an Two was space, again obHque angle.

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