John Hoyland

Saracen

1977

Not on display

Artist: John Hoyland 1934–2011
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 2438 × 2286 × 26 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1979
Reference: T02402

Display caption

Hoyland has said that ‘The structure of form is meant to be a container for colour, a container of feeling. Structure or colour alone could never be an answer in itself.’ In Saracen the stained ground of the canvas surface provides a bed for a large rectangle with a stepped base. It is thickly painted in red over what seems to be a slab of yellow with blues and greens showing through. Underneath this, smaller interlocking oblongs of different colours sit beside an area of the splattered and stained ground.

Gallery label, October 2019

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Catalogue entry

T02402 SARACEN 1977

Inscribed on reverse ‘JOHN HOYLAND 1977’
Acrylic on canvas, 96 × 90 (243.8 × 228.6)
Purchased from Theo Waddington & Co. Ltd. (Grant-in-Aid) 1979
Exh: Waddington Galleries, Toronto, March–April 1978; John Hoyland, Serpentine Gallery, September–October 1979 (31, repr. in colour)
Lit: John McEwen, ‘John Hoyland in mid career’, in Arts Canada, April–May 1978, pp.36–37, repr. in colour; Tate Gallery 1978–80, p.52 and repr. in colour

[no further details]

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1978-80: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1981