Howard Hodgkin CH CBE (1932-2017) was a British artist, best known for his deeply abstracted portraits and scenes from his own life. Constructing pictorial space using expressive brush marks and an inspired use of colour, his paintings almost always incorporated the frame into the image, providing a genuine three dimensional aspect that aided the incredible depth in his pictures. Born in London, Hodgkin and his family fled the Second World War sometime between 1940 and 1943, and settled in Long Island, New York.
The move proved seminal for the young artist as he was able to study the paintings of Stuart Davis, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. This deeply influenced his work and inspired his lifelong explorations of the medium of painting.
In 1984, he represented Great Britain in the Venice Biennale, and the following year he won theTurner Prize. Hodgkin was also a prolific printmaker. Silk-screen printing provided a medium that suited his bold shapes and colours but captured the subtlety and painterliness of his compositions.
Hodgkin’s works are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, to name but a few.