Howard Hodgkin Overview
Howard Hodgkin is one of Britain’s most celebrated contemporary painters. His signature use of long, broad brushstrokes, stippled dots and drips of paint etc., may look spontaneous, but are actually the result of (often) many years of careful layering and over-painting. These same features also associate the artist with abstraction, a style of art which does not aim to represent a visual reference from the real world accurately. Instead, Hodgkin uses colour, shape and movement to explore thoughts and feelings. He has cited other artists like Stuart Davies, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso as influences, as well as the broader genre of Indian Art, a country that he visited almost annually.
Hodgkin is as equally revered for his printmaking as he is for his painting, and despite his own opinion that painting and printmaking are two distinct art forms, his prints are often credited with being fusions of them both. This is mainly due to his preference for etching, aquatint and carborundum, with the addition of hand colouring. Carborundum works to add a texture to a print, not dissimilar to brushstrokes, when applied to the plate of the etching, and hand colouring refers to the way that Hodgkin would add watercolour, gouache, ink or acrylic to his printed surfaces. Not only does this add a three-dimensionality to his works on paper, it also means that they all differ slightly, and so each one of his prints exists as a unique artwork.
Howard Hodgkin (British 1923-2017), "Snow", aquatint in colours. Sold: £2,900
Hodgkin was born in 1932 in Hammersmith, London, and died in 2017. His life was marked by a series of accomplishments, including representing Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1984, winning the Turner Prize in 1885, and being knighted in 1992. Hodgkin’s works are constantly met with success at auctions across the world, with the prices being achieved for his original paintings working to increase demands among buyers for his printed works as well. At Wilson55, our in-house expert Stephen Sparrow has years of experience in assessing and valuing Howard Hodgkin’s work, so do get in touch if you’d like to learn more about a piece you own or discuss a potential sale or valuation.
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