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Howard Hodgkin
Shortlisted: 1984, 1985

Hodgkin's main preoccupation has been to convey the emotional, psychological and physical character of particular encounters: the ambience of a domestic interior, the subtle meanings and effects of conversations. He paints in oils on wood, rather than canvas, using a vocabulary of abstract marks - blots, strips, spots, swirls and feathery strokes. Since the 1970s he has often painted the frames of his paintings so that, rather than simply closing the picture off from the space around it, the frame plays a more active role.

Howard Hodgkin was born in London, England in 1932. He studied at Camberwell School of Art and the Bath Academy of Art from 1949 to 1954. He was first shortlisted in 1984 for his paintings representing Britain at the Venice Biennale. In 1985, Hodgkin won the award for the international impact of his 1984 Venice Biennale exhibition, which subsequently toured the USA and Germany, and was shown in an extended form at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London in 1985.

This information has been taken from The Turner Prize: Twenty Years, by Virginia Button, Tate Publishing, 2003.

View Howard Hodgkin in the Tate Collection