Sir Howard Hodgkin

Sir Howard Hodgkin CH CBE (1932–2017)

Sir Howard Hodgkin was one of the most distinguished British artists of his generation, celebrated for paintings and prints in which colour, gesture and memory combine to create intensely personal and emotionally resonant images.

Born in London in 1932, Hodgkin studied at Camberwell School of Art and the Bath Academy of Art at Corsham. Although frequently associated with abstraction, Hodgkin regarded his paintings as representations of experiences, places, encounters and memories. His richly layered compositions use expressive brushwork and luminous colour to evoke the emotional character of a particular moment rather than describe it literally.

India held a particularly important place in Hodgkin's life and work. He first visited the country in 1964 and returned frequently over many decades. Its landscape, architecture, light and intense colours became a profound and enduring source of inspiration, while Hodgkin also assembled an important collection of Indian paintings.

In 1985, Barry Cronan Fine Art commissioned Hodgkin's tapestry India Sunset. Produced as a hand-knotted tapestry in India, the work was issued in a limited edition of 20 plus artist's proofs.

India Sunset is particularly suited to the tapestry medium. Hodgkin's expressive fields of colour and his response to the atmosphere and visual intensity of India are transformed through the texture and depth of hand-knotted textile, giving the image a distinctive physical presence while retaining the immediacy and emotional force associated with his work.

Hodgkin represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1984 and won the Turner Prize in 1985. He was knighted in 1992 and later appointed a Companion of Honour, confirming his place among the most significant British artists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.