Malcolm Hughes

Square Relief. White

1968

© The estate of Malcolm Hughes

License this image

Not on display

Artist: Malcolm Hughes 1920–1997
Medium: Oil paint on board
Dimensions: Object: 610 × 610 × 60 mm
frame: 750 × 750 × 100 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Transferred from the Victoria & Albert Museum 1983
Reference: T03754

Display caption

Malcolm Hughes was one of a group of international constructivist artists who have upheld a purist, non-figurative approach to making art. Central to their work has been the development of an abstract language of idealised forms. Such art communicates in a very direct way, through form, line, surface and colour. The artist described this and related reliefs as exploring ideas about sequence, rhythm and repetition, light and physical space. 'The conceptual means employed tend to be those of extraction and reduction from a given sequence of numbers. Sometimes these are taken in one direction only; at others, alternating direction and superimposition are used.'

Gallery label, August 2004

Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

Catalogue entry

T03754 Square Relief. White 1968

Construction, painted wood 24 × 24 × 2 3/8 (610 × 610 × 60)

Inscribed on reverse ‘MALCOLM HUGHES 19 OXFORD RD: ↑TOP LONDON SW15^* USE PERSPEX ANTISTATIC/POLISH’
Transferred from the Victoria and Albert Museum 1983

Prov: Purchased from the artist by the Department of Circulation, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1969 (Circ. 77–1969)
Exh: Four Artists. Reliefs, Constructions and Drawings. John Ernest. Anthony Hill. Malcolm Hughes. Gillian Wise, Victoria and Albert Museum Exhibition, 1969 (17); travelling exhibitions of the Department of Circulation, Victoria and Albert Museum

The catalogue of the ‘Four Artists’ exhibition prints a statement, dated December 1968, by the artist about this group of constructions, and reproduces a drawing on graph paper that is a study for this relief. A similar drawing, lettered and numbered to show the basis of the pattern, is reproduced in the exhibition catalogue Malcolm Hughes, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, September 1973.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1986