Cristea Roberts Gallery Press Release September 2019

43 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JG Press Contact: +44 (0)20 7439 1866 Gemma Colgan [email protected] [email protected] www.cristearoberts.com +44 (0)20 7439 1866

Howard Hodgkin: Strictly Personal Part I 31 October - 23 November 2019 Part II 28 November - 21 December 2019

increased with hand- giving richness to the printed surface. This was the beginning of the hybrid labour intensive process which Hodgkin was to employ for the rest of his career. During this time Hodgkin began to work with some of the best printers in America and Europe, including Petersburg Press in New York and Aldo Crommelyck in Paris, who was responsible for so many of the most accomplished graphic works by Braque, Picasso and Matisse. Examples from this period include Bed, 1978, Breakfast, 1978 and Storm, 1977.

In 1986 Hodgkin made the acquaintance of master printer Jack Shireff who introduced him to carborundum printing, a method which allowed the artist to increase the emotional intensity of his printed work by adding texture and depth to his work. By introduc- ing gritty silica compounds to the plate, Hodgkin was now able to apply colour directly with a brush, creating etchings with painterly

Howard Hodgkin; Strictly Personal, 2000-2002 effects, such asRed Palm and Black Monsoon, both executed in 1987. Howard Hodgkin: Strictly Personal is a retrospective survey of prints by Sir Howard Hodgkin (1932 - 2017) on display at Cristea “Howard’s prints became bigger and more complex from the late Roberts Gallery from 31 October until 21 December 2019. Hodgkin 1990s onwards and printmaking dominated his late career,” says first made prints in the 1950s, working consistently in the medium, Alan Cristea. “Through a highly personal hybrid fusion of printmak- alongside painting, until his death in 2017. This exhibition will ing and painting, an intaglio base of carborundum and aquatint cover the breadth of Hodgkin’s career, drawing from important accentuated and enlivened by hand-painted touches, Hodgkin examples, in technique and subject matter, which were made with threw out the printmaking rule book in the service of hard won some of the most prestigious workshops and print publishers in spontaneity.” the world. During his lifetime Hodgkin made over 120 prints with publisher Alan Cristea, the vast majority of which will be exhibited. Large scale editions including Street Palm, 1990-91 and Flowering Howard Hodgkin: Strictly Personal will be split into two parts, pay- Palm, 1990-91, were in part inspired by the large advertising post- ing tribute to Hodgkin’s extraordinary achievement in printmaking. ers which he saw in Parisian metro stations. Hodgkin filled the entire sheet with the fronds of a palm tree. His prints were Although Hodgkin made his first print in 1953, as a 20-year-old becoming more physical. Evening, 1995, described by student at the Bath Academy of Art in Corsham, he made relatively Hodgkin as “on the edge of not being a print” is representative of few in the first 25 years of his artistic career. These were either the prints that were now often much larger than his . The lithographs or screenprints - the latter being the predominant works from his Venetian Views series, which evoke the mood of medium for English artists of his generation. The works made from different times of day in Venice, were inspired by Thomas Mann’s 1966 onwards give a fascinating insight into the major preoccupa- novel Death In Venice (1912). tions of his oeuvre as a whole. One of these was his desire to conjure up the atmosphere and the emotions of social engage- The prints that Hodgkin produced in the final 15 years of his life ment within an intimate context, such as the series of interiors convey a vitality, almost a wildness, only hinted at previously in made from 1966 to 1968, a group of five lithographs,5 Rooms, that some of his unique works. These late works often refer to memo- show brightly coloured figures emerging from their settings. ries and personal experiences. Green Thoughts, the series made in 2014, references Andrew Marvell’s seventeenth-century poem In the late 1970s he turned his back on the surface qualities of The Garden. Although Hodgkin resisted interpretation, the artist’s screenprint and began to hand-colour his lithographs to better gestural marks, vibrant colours and evocative titles such as Storm evoke the experiences and emotions life was beginning to offer Cloud, 2014, and Sundown, 2014, invite contemplation about him. Hand-coloured etchings also made their first appearance. encounters with nature. Acquainted with the Night, a series of Obvious figurative elements all but disappeared but vitality twelve works made in Hodgkin’s eightieth year, was inspired by a 1 Cristea Roberts Gallery Press Release September 2019

43 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JG Press Contact: +44 (0)20 7439 1866 Gemma Colgan [email protected] [email protected] www.cristearoberts.com +44 (0)20 7439 1866

Robert Frost poem of the same name. Seven of these works were About the artist executed on a large scale (measuring 174 x 244 cm), printed over several sheets of hinged, hand-torn paper. Attack, 2012, is dominat- Sir Howard Hodgkin (1932 - 2017) was one of Britain’s most ed by vigorous over-painting in yellow and green against a muted important painters and printmakers. Born in London, he studied at background of brown and rose while In India, 2012, radiates with the Camberwell School of Art between 1949 - 50, followed by the vibrant reds, through to orange and yellow. Bath Academy of Art between 1950 - 1954.

The last series of editions that Hodgkin ever made, entitled After His paintings and prints has been the subject of major exhibitions All, was completed several months before his death in March all over the world. His first retrospective was curated by Nicholas 2017. These works were the summation of the visual language that Serota at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, in 1976. Other major Hodgkin called “representational pictures of emotional exhibitions and retrospectives include The Metropolitan Museum situations.” Works from this series including Ice Cream, 2015-16, of Art, New York, 1995, 2010; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; and Black Blush, 2015-16, are sure, deft, direct, and vital. These Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2006; Barbican, London; Yale Centre for visual gestures have synaesthetic qualities; a colour that evokes British Art, Connecticut, 2007; Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, 2015; a touch, a brush-mark that conjures up a taste or an aroma. The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, 2017 and National Portrait After All series hints at memories of England, days by the sea, the Gallery, London, 2017. taste of an ice-cream on a summers’ day, the wind brushing clouds across the sky, and yet they remain unequivocally in the present. He designed the set and costumes for several opera and ballet productions throughout his lifetime. In 1985 Hodgkin won the Cristea Roberts Gallery is the official representative for the prints and represented Britain in the Venice Biennale. He from the Estate of Howard Hodgkin. has served as a trustee of the , London and the National Gallery, London and was knighted in 1992. His paintings and prints ENDS are held by most major museums including Tate, London; , London; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Museum of NOTES TO EDITORS Modern Art, New York; Carnegie Institute, Pennsylvania and Louisiana, Denmark. Private View: 6 - 7.30pm, Wednesday 30 October 2019 Howard Hodgkin died aged 84 on 9 March 2017 in London.

Panel Discussion: About Cristea Roberts Gallery 6pm, Thursday 28 November 2019 Andrew Marr, writer and broadcaster, and Andrew Graham-Dixon, Cristea Roberts Gallery is a leading international contemporary art art historian, critic and broadcaster, in conversation about Howard gallery with a particular focus on original prints and works on Hodgkin. paper. Since its inception, the gallery has commissioned a signifi- cant number editions by a wide range of artists, whilst also repre- Visitor information: senting others for their unique works. The underlying ethos of the gallery has always been artist-led. It was originally founded in 1995 Mon - Fri 10am - 5.30pm as the Alan Cristea Gallery and changed its name in September Sat 11am - 2pm 2019 to Cristea Roberts Gallery. Closed on Sundays and public holidays Acknowledged as one of the leading galleries in its field of Travel: specialty, the gallery’s programme is dedicated to publishing, Piccadilly or Green Park underground station cataloguing, exhibiting and dealing in original prints and drawings by its roster of over 30 important international artists and Estates. +44 (0)20 7439 1866 It participates in all the major international art fairs and has a [email protected] dynamic programme of exhibitions hosted in its bespoke space in www.cristearoberts.com Pall Mall, London. Twitter: @CristeaRoberts Instagram: @cristearoberts The gallery works closely with international museums on acqui- Facebook: Cristea Roberts Gallery sitions and loans, and examples of its editions are held in major #HowardHodgkin public collections around the world including Tate, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. 2