|
‘I am a representational painter, but not a painter of appearances. I paint representational pictures of emotional situations.’
In 1976 Hodgkin discovered a medium called Liquin which transformed his method of working. It reduced the drying time of his pigments and allowed him to build up layers of oil while preserving the paint’s luminosity and fluidity, as visible in the overlapping marks of Red Bermudas 1978–80 and the translucent glazes in Clean Sheets 1982–4.
Hodgkin’s work of the late 1970s reached a new level of emotional intensity as his subject matter grew more personal and intimate. Reflecting his admiration for the painter Edouard Vuillard and the Symbolist poets, Hodgkin uses pure colour to depict transient moments not by describing them, but by suggesting them indirectly. The pictures present reality through fragmented glimpses – they both reveal and conceal their subject.
In addition to moments of anger, jealousy or pain, certain pictures explicitly refer to erotic situations. The unpainted curve of wood in the lower register of Waking up in Naples 1980–4 models the contour of a reclining nude.
Howard Hodgkin
In a French Restaurant 1977-79 Collection of Mary Beth and Walter Buck  enlarge this image
 Listen to Audio Guide for this work
|
 |
|
Howard Hodgkin
After Corot 1979-82 Private Collection, LA Louver Gallery, Venice, California enlarge this image
Listen to Audio Guide for this work
|
|
|
|
Howard Hodgkin
Dinner in Palazzo Albrizzi 1984-88 Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth enlarge this image |
|
|
|
|
