HOWARD HODGKIN

(1932-2017)

Girl in a Museum
1958-1960

Footnotes

Provenance
Peter Cochrane Collection, London
Thence by descent to the present owner

Exhibited
London, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Howard Hodgkin, 1962, no. 4, illustrated in black and white
Bochum, Städtischen Kunstgalerie Bochum, Profile III: Englische Kunst der Gegenwart, 1964, no. 78, illustrated in black and white
Oxford, Museum of Modern Art; London, Serpentine Gallery; Leigh, Turnpike Gallery; Newcastle upon Tyne, Laing Art Gallery; Aberdeen, Aberdeen Art Gallery; Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, Howard Hodgkin: Forty-Five paintings 1949-1975, 1976
Berlin, Galerie Haas & Fuchs, Howard Hodgkin, 2004

Literature
Marla Price (Ed.), Howard Hodgkin: The Complete Paintings Catalogue Raisonné, London 2006, p. 44, no. 9, illustrated in colour
Åsmund Thorkildsen, Howard Hodgkin The Thinking Painter of Embodied Memories, Milan 2011, p. 14, illustrated in colour



In 1962, the celebrated English artist Howard Hodgkin presented his first solo exhibition at the prominent London gallery, Arthur Tooth & Sons. Founded in 1842, the gallery hosted many exhibitions over the years by important artists including Dame Barbara Hepworth, Allen Jones, Antoni Clavé and Jean Dubuffet to name only a few. The exhibition, Howard Hodgkin: An exhibition of recent paintings, in which the present work was included, was met with widespread acclaim as declared by the art critic Edward Lucie Smith: "It is with sad truth that English artists usually have little sense of the 'absolute'. By which I mean that they seldom have either the stamina or the courage to pursue their own discoveries, or even their own feelings, to the bitter end. Howard Hodgkin, by contrast, is a painter with a wholly refreshing rigour, a talent not just for bold design, but for the intellectual organisation of things. Yet he remains in love with the medium. His work has none of the drabness which is too frequently associated by modern artists with pretensions to intellect. He knows that true austerity need by no means be dismal, and the result is some of the most exciting and original colour harmonies I have seen for years..." (Edward Lucie Smith, Howard Hodgkin: An exhibition of recent paintings, www.howard-hodgkin.com, 9 March 2022).

Painted during a pivotal moment in Hodgkin's career, the present work captures a point between the earlier figurative portraiture favoured by the artist in the 40s and early 50s and the more mature expressive and abstract gestural strokes. Whereas works such as Memoirs, 1949 – which illustrates the artist and a friend in a domestic setting - are executed with geometric shapes and bold graphic outlines, Girl in a Museum from 1958-60 is painted in a much looser style and unencumbered by limitations of structure. It is here that we start to see how Hodgkin would break away from the traditional confines of painting and would explore beyond the picture plane, utilising the frame as an inclusion of his work in his highly emotive and eloquent abstractions.

Girl in a Museum is a devotion of colour, form, and texture. A young girl is depicted mid-motion, seemingly caught between the foreground and the background of the surface. Her torso is partly ensconced by the horizontal stripes in the upper half of the canvas as her eyes peer out towards the viewer. Only one arm sticks out defiantly as if reaching for something or someone that we cannot see, meanwhile the lower half of her body is free from constraint and the bold red on her legs draws the eye down the surface and is contrasted against the emerald tones of the horizontal lines. From the title we can deduce that the girl is visiting a museum, however there is no indication of the nature of museum or indeed any representation of the institution at all. Instead, the figure has taken the centre stage of the painting as both the viewer and the girl are caught in a fleeting moment filled with the energy and intensity of the artist, skilfully communicated through Hodgkin's masterly interplay of gesture and movement.

Widely exhibited, this work was originally acquired by John Peter Warren Cochrane, who was a director at Arthur Tooth & Sons. Aside from his career as an art dealer, Cochrane was also a keen collector with an astute eye and devotion to championing young British artists. Cochrane would collect several works from Hodgkin including the present lot, which was treasured in his private collection for many years. This fondness for the artist was clearly reciprocated as Cochrane became the subject for a portrait Hodgkin would execute in the same year as the solo exhibition. Now in the prestigious collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, (John) Peter Warren Cochrane, 1962 is an arresting depiction of someone Hodgkin clearly admired. Rendered with a compositional flatness that evokes the simplification favoured by Henri Matisse, there is a sense of assuredness and calm from the sitter but also a respect between the artist and subject.

In 1984 Hodgkin represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale and the next year he was awarded the Turner Prize. With a career spanning over seven decades and with paintings residing in museums internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Sao Paulo, Brazil; and the Centro de Arte Moderna, Lisbon, Girl in a Museum presents a wonderful opportunity to acquire a very early and rare work with wonderful provenance by one of the most celebrated and acclaimed contemporary British painters.