LONDON.- Alex Vardaxoglou inaugurated a private exhibition space with a small exhibition of paintings and work on paper by celebrated British artist Patrick Caulfield (1936 – 2005). The exhibition runs from 14 November 2020 through to 14 February 2021.
The works range in date from 1975 to 1998 and offer great insight into the artist’s painted oeuvre in this key period. The exhibition includes iconic paintings in which Caulfield visits his regular and most renowned subjects; interiors, foodstuff, tobacco, and architecture. It is through these simple subjects that Caulfield was able to explore and develop his distinctive and nuanced visual vocabulary of modern life.
This period culminated in a very interesting direction for Caulfield’s painting in the nineties, when he began to compose images more intuitively. At this point, the textures and surfaces of his work changed, as he employed different techniques to make the painted motif more sculptural. Two of the paintings presented, Bottle of Oil and Lamb (1993) and Awning (1998), are exemplary masterworks which illustrate Caulfield’s shift in direction in the context of his previous work, combining photorealism with his iconic bold graphic depictions.
These ideas were also executed particularly well in his printmaking, a key feature of his practice since beginning screen printing in the sixties. Pine Garden (1975) and Grey Pipe (1981) are also included in the exhibition, which relate directly to well-known prints of the same year. All of the works in the exhibition are from private collections in the U.K.
Patrick Caulfield (1936-2005) is one of Britain’s best-known artists. He was born in Acton, London, and studied at Chelsea School of Art followed by the Royal College of Art. Major retrospectives of his work have been held at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and Tate, London, 1981; Serpentine Gallery, London, 1992-93; and Hayward Gallery, London, 1999 (Touring Exhibition: Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art, Luxembourg, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut (1999–2000). In 2013, Tate Britain staged a landmark exhibition dedicated to his work. Caulfield’s work has been collected by museums all over the world.
