Gary Hume

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 seventh image and its subtitle is Lady Parker. It is based on a much larger painting, Lady Parker (After Holbein) 1998 (Guy & Annushka Shani, London) in gloss paint on aluminium panel. It differs from other images in the series in consisting mainly of drawn lines on a flat monochrome pink background rather than areas of flat colour. In the painting the lines are grey; in the print they are pale blue, with a darker shade of blue used to delineate Lady Parker’s eyes. Two geometrically perfect black discs on either side of her face in the painting have been replaced by larger pale yellow discs on the print. These discs, possibly representing earrings, constitute the most radical aspect of Hume’s transformation of the original. As the painting’s subtitle explicates, the image is based on a portrait attributed to German-born painter and official portraitist in the court of King Henry VIII, Hans Holbein (the Younger, 1497-1543). Holbein’s drawing of Lady Parker (thought to be Lady Grace Parker, who was married to Sir Henry Parker in 1523 at the age of eight) is one of his most popular images available in reproduction. Hume has depicted her in renaissance costume in the style of drawing typical to contemporary cartoons or fashion drawing.

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, p.67
Gary Hume, exhibition catalogue, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht 1996

Elizabeth Manchester
May 2002

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