LONDON.- Gagosian will present a takeover of its Burlington Arcade gallery and shop dedicated to Howard Hodgkin (1932–2017), opening on September 3, 2024. The presentation explores the full breadth of Hodgkin’s wide-ranging interests in antiquities, design, food, literature, travel, and, of course, painting.
One of Britain’s most celebrated contemporary painters and printmakers, Hodgkin composed powerful, expressive works that, while apparently abstract, bring representation, gesture, and affect into urgent relation. Gagosian is proud to have exhibited works by the artist since 1998 and is excited to present this collaboration with his estate, a takeover that includes the vivid oil-on-wood painting Always Afternoon (2016). This composition in red, blue, brown, and white, which is on view upstairs at the gallery, was previously featured in Howard Hodgkin: In the Pink at Gagosian Hong Kong, the artist’s 2017 debut exhibition in that country. Transforming a personal memory into an exalted experience of pure color, it conveys the artist’s unmatched ability to make visible the relationship between emotion, hand, and eye.
A selection of items from the Howard Hodgkin Home range, including crockery, rugs, and soft furnishings, is available for purchase. Howard Hodgkin Home is a new initiative designed to celebrate Hodgkin’s work and to help fund the ambitions of the Howard Hodgkin Legacy Trust. In addition to ensuring that the artist’s work reaches audiences globally, the organization aims to collaborate with existing institutions on converting the artist’s studio into a museum. The Howard Hodgkin Home range includes plates based on Hodgkin’s 1981 print Souvenir and a limited-edition rug based on his painting Red Sky in the Morning (2016) that was produced by Christopher Farr and is on view in the basement space.
Among other material for sale is Indian Leaves (1982), a lithograph produced for the cover of a proposed limited-edition version of the catalogue documenting the Tate’s exhibition of the eponymous series, and a selection of prints by Hodgkin and books on the artist. These include catalogues published to accompany exhibitions of his work at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth, Texas (1995); National Portrait Gallery, London (2017); Hepworth Wakefield, England (2017); and Gagosian galleries internationally. The many posters on view include several published to accompany various exhibitions. The basement also functions as a reading room with a selection of books and catalogues available for perusal.
Howard Hodgkin was born in London in 1932, and died there in 2017. Collections include Tate, London; Arts Council Collection, London; Government Picture Collection, London; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and National Gallery of Victoria, Australia. Institutional exhibitions include Paintings 1975–1995, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1995); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2006, traveled to Tate Britain, London, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid); Paintings: 1992–2007, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT (2007); Time and Place, 2001–2010, Modern Art Oxford, England (2010); Made in Mumbai, Curator’s Gallery at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai (2016); Absent Friends, National Portrait Gallery, London (2017); and Painting India, Hepworth Wakefield Gallery, England (2017).
Hodgkin was made CBE in 1977, knighted in 1992, and made a Companion of Honour in 2003. He was awarded the Turner Prize in London in 1985, the Shakespeare Prize in Hamburg in 1997, an honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) degree by the University of Oxford in 2000, and the first Swarovski Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon award in 2014.
Gagosian has represented Hodgkin since 1998 and has presented numerous exhibitions of his work in Europe, the United States, and Hong Kong.
