Press Release

Gagosian is pleased to announce a presentation of work by Howard Hodgkin (1932–2017) at its gallery in London’s Burlington Arcade, and a takeover dedicated to the artist at the Gagosian Shop. The project explores the full breadth of Hodgkin’s wide-ranging interests in antiquities, design, food, literature, travel, and, of course, painting.

One of Britain’s most celebrated contemporary painters and printmakers, Hodgkin composed powerful, expressive works that, while apparently abstract, bring representation, gesture, and affect into urgent relation. Gagosian is proud to have exhibited works by the artist since 1998 and is excited to present this collaboration with his estate, which includes the vivid oil-on-wood painting Always Afternoon (2016). This composition in red, blue, brown, and white was previously featured in Howard Hodgkin: In the Pink at Gagosian Hong Kong, the artist’s 2017 debut exhibition in that country. Transforming a personal memory into an exalted experience of pure colour, it conveys the artist’s unmatched ability to make visible the relationship between emotion, hand, and eye.

Also on view are a selection of prints by Hodgkin, including Indian Leaves (1982), a lithograph produced for the cover of a proposed limited-edition version of the catalogue documenting the Tate’s exhibition of the eponymous series. In the Shop, items from the Howard Hodgkin Home range, including crockery, rugs, and soft furnishings, are available for purchase along with books on the artist and posters published to accompany various exhibitions. The basement floor also functions as a reading room with a selection of books and catalogues available for perusal.

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About the Artist

In exploring the very nature of painting both as cultured language and sheer expression, Hodgkin disregards the classical polarities of abstraction and representation, past and present, canvas and frame. Assertive compressed gestures, sweeping complex textures, a lush palette, and the dynamic interchange of light and dark are all traits of his distinctive signature. With their maximalist gestures and saturated colours, his more intimately scaled paintings appear jewel-like, while larger works are opulent and theatrical. With incorporated frames and painted wooden supports, they operate as both objects and images. Embracing spontaneity and directness in equal measure to the processes of reflection and capitulation, it may take a year for Hodgkin to prepare to execute a single brushstroke. The seemingly casual, urgent quality of his paintings belies the fact that most of them have been worked on for two or three years. More than ever they convey the relationship between hand, eye, and memory that drives their process, visual structure, and emotional temperature.

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Also Exhibiting at Gagosian

About the Gallery


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Address
28–29 Burlington Arcade
London
United Kingdom
(1)
London 28–29 Burlington Arcade
Gagosian
28–29 Burlington Arcade, London, United Kingdom
+44 20 7841 9962
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