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diminished.
Hodgkin is known now for painting on wood, whether recycled bread-board, door panel or large constructed sheet. He is also known for painting his frames. He says that he sees the frames as ‘fortification for delicate paintings’, yet if they are painted they surely become part of the picture they are supposed to protect. The framing device — whether actual or painted — has become something of an idée fixe in recent years and now seems a mannerism. In the 1950s and 1960s he worked on canvas, then began to paint on wood in 1969, his definitive shift to wooden supports occurring in 1972. As he says of wood: ‘unlike canvas it doesn’t answer back’. Perhaps he should have another go at canvas: these days it seems that Sir Howard could do with a support which gives him a bit more cheek.
For the early works are so good that any subsequent falling off is immediately noticeable. The paintings of the 1970s are inventive, playful, plangent. Look at ‘Mr and Mrs EJP’, the powerful ‘Bombay Sunset’ or the hypnotic ‘Talking about Art’. Hodgkin risks the discordant in the search for a greater harmony. ‘Small Durand Gardens’ (1974) is a tremendous painting, as is ‘Ellen Smart’s Indian Slide Show’ and ‘In the Studio of Jamini Roy’. These pictures are daring for what has been blanked out, discarded and over-painted. You can see why people felt that looking at Hodgkin of this period for the first time changed the way they saw the world. And you cannot help but form the impression, perhaps unfairly, that he risks less these days, that there are not such brilliant, discarded paintings beneath the final one he is satisfied with and allows us to see.
A number of these paintings are like magical gardens, though the very beautiful ‘After Corot’ is more like a stage set. ‘Red Bermudas’ is a tough painting as against the lavish sensuality of ‘In the Bay of Naples’, or the mood which is at once marine and sultry of ‘Waking Up in Naples’ (1980–4). The old enchantment begins to thin out a bit after this. Revealingly, Hodgkin produced 160 paintings between 1957 and 1980, but nearly twice that amount (300) between 1980 and 2005. Not only has he speeded up, but he also seems to have thinned down. Yet there are still good later works like the potent ‘Lovers’ (1984–92), the tiny Valentine-like ‘Antony’s Blue Palm’ (2002), and the cool grey-green delights of ‘Evening’ (1994–5), owned by the novelist Julian Barnes. But to hang the latter next to such a comparatively feeble painting as ‘Fisherman’s Cove’ undermines the show’s balance. In the last room ‘Come into the garden Maud’ (2000–3) seems to be something of a return to form, as is the painting of a rainbow, but ‘Undertones of War’ is a muddy mess and ‘Wallpaper’ all lurid blobs.
The effectiveness of Hodgkin’s paintings depends to a certain (and crucial) extent on how much you believe in his honesty. Perhaps he finds it more difficult or painful to achieve truth to experience these days, and depends instead on camouflage, on concealing emotions rather than revealing them.
The lavish catalogue (£24.99 in paperback) contains a pithy introductory essay by Nicholas Serota, a long-time admirer of Hodgkin, and a less readable text by James Meyer. A couple of books have appeared concurrently. Writers on Howard Hodgkin, edited by Enrique Juncosa (Tate Publishing £14.99 hbk), features essays by such distinguished Hodgkin-watchers as Susan Sontag, James Fenton and Alan Hollinghurst, with a newly commissioned piece by Cólm Toibín. The 20 colour illustrations are not well-reproduced, but this is a text celebration, a feast of language. Nicely ironic, then, that Julian Barnes should end his seven-page hymn to Hodgkin thus: ‘For me, these paintings resist words — at least, words which can convey what happens inside me when I look at them.’ It almost makes one thankful for art historians. It’s a book for those already converted to Hodgkin, as is the vast catalogue raisonné of the paintings just published by Thames & Hudson at £60. It runs to nearly 400 pages, has more than 400 illustrations, mostly in colour, and is introduced by John Elderfield. It’s a hefty but luscious reference book compiled by Marla Price, director of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, and will inevitably fuel further discussion as to how much of Hodgkin’s work is rare and original, and how much pure fluff and navel-gazing.
Howard Hodgkin is at Tate Britain until 10 September, and travels to the Reina Sofia in Madrid in the autumn (18 October to 8 January 2007).
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