Summary
Hume’s Portraits is a series of ten screenprints commissioned by Charles Booth-Clibborn and published by him under his imprint, The Paragon Press, London. They were proofed and printed at Coriander Studio, London in an edition of thirty-six plus ten artist’s proofs. Tate’s copy is number eighteen in the edition. Each print was made using between three and fifteen colours and coated with several layers of varnish in sections. The varnish results in a sheer, glossy surface similar to that achieved by Hume’s use of household gloss paint in his paintings such as Incubus 1991 (Tate T07184) and Water Painting 1999 (Tate T07618). The prints are based on paintings Hume made between 1994 and 1998. Some of these paintings were derived from photographs, others from Hume’s imagination. Each print has a subtitle related to the original painting. This is the third image and its subtitle is Young Woman. It is based on a painting of the same title made in 1997 (private collection, Los Angeles). It is an imaginary portrait. Like the preceding print, Angel (Tate P78682), it depicts a character with two differently coloured eyes. In this instance, one eye is blue and white and the other is brown and mustard. The face is a flesh tone, the same colour as the background, while the neck is a block of paler colour which extends in a fine line to outline the contours of the face and separate it from the background. Close-cropped brown hair, a large decorative yellow earring and a model’s orange lipstick smile contribute fashion references. The contrasting eye colours evoke damage or a demon hiding beneath the bland and stylised surface of the young woman’s conventionally beautiful image.
Screenprinting is a medium ideally suited to Hume’s imagery since it involves layering areas of flat colour. His paintings of the early to mid 1990s are characterised by the use of simple blocks of vivid colour and elegant line reminiscent of the late prints of French artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954). During this period Hume painted such iconic subjects as the Christian Madonna 1993 (private collection, London), as well as such everyday objects as flowers, birds, children’s toys and feet or hands. He also made portraits of artists and celebrities, from which he derived the images used in this portfolio of prints. Portraits provides a refined version of Hume’s painterly exploration of the difference between the surface and what lies underneath, what goes into the making of the image, or the mask, of a public icon and how a generic figure is depicted. Pushing Hume’s images still further towards abstraction, this portfolio contributes to the investigation into the signs or language of visual representation central to contemporary figurative painting.
Further reading:
Patrick Elliott, Jeremy Lewison, Contemporary British Art in Print: The Publications of Charles Booth-Clibborn and his Imprint The Paragon Press 1995-2000, London 2001, pp.10, 19, 146-57 and 320, reproduced (colour) p.146
Gary Hume, exhibition catalogue, British Pavilion, XLVIII Venice Biennale, British Council 1999
Gary Hume, exhibition catalogue, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht 1996
Elizabeth Manchester
May 2002
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