Sir Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin CH CBE (6 August 1932 – 9 March 2017) was a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction.

Early life

Howard Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1932 in Hammersmith, London, the son of Eliot Hodgkin, a manager for the chemical company ICI and a noted amateur horticulturist, and his wife Katherine, a botanical illustrator.[2][3] His maternal grandfather Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart was a journalist, lawyer, MP and Lord Chief Justice; and the scientist Thomas Hodgkin was his great-great-grandfather's older brother. Hodgkin was a cousin of the English still life painter Eliot Hodgkin (1905–87),

During the Second World War Hodgkin was evauated with his mother and sister to the US, where they lived on Long Island. On returning, he was educated at Eton College and then at Bryanston School in Dorset. However Hodgkin had decided on a career in art in early childhood and ran away from school to pursue this. He studied at the Camberwell Art School and later at the Bath Academy of Art in Corsham, where Edward Piper studied drawing under him.

Career

Hodgkin's first solo show was in London in 1962. His early paintings tend to be made up of hard-edged curved forms in a limited number of colours.

Around the beginning of the 1970s, Hodgkin's style became more spontaneous, with vaguely recognisable shapes presented in bright colours and bold forms.

In 1980, Hodgkin was invited by John Hoyland to exhibit work as part of the Hayward Annual at the Hayward Gallery along with Gillian Ayres, Basil Beattie, Terry Setch, Anthony Caro, Patrick Caulfield, Ben Nicholson and others.

In 1984, Hodgkin represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, in 1985 he won the Turner Prize, and in 1992 he was knighted.

In 1995, Hodgkin printed the Venetian Views series, which depict the same view of Venice at four different times of day. Venice, Afternoon – one of the four prints – uses sixteen sheets, or fragments, in a hugely complex printing process which creates a colourful, painterly effect. This piece was given to the Yale Centre of British Art in June 2006 by the Israel family to complement their already-impressive collection of Hodgkins.

In 2003, he was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II as a Companion of Honour. A major exhibition of his work was mounted at Tate Britain, London, in 2006. Also in 2006, The Independent declared him one of the 100 most influential gay people in Britain, as his work has helped many people express their emotions to others.

In September 2010, Hodgkin and five other British artists, John Hoyland, John Walker, Ian Stephenson, Patrick Caulfield and R.B. Kitaj, were in an exhibition entitled The Independent Eye: Contemporary British Art From the Collection of Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, at the Yale Center for British Art.

His prints were hand-painted etchings and he worked with the master printer Jack Shirreff at 107 Workshop.

Honours

Hodgkin was awarded the CBE in 1977, and he was knighted in 1992.[2] In 2000, he was awarded an honorary DLitt by Oxford University. and was made a Companion of Honour in the 2003 New Year Honours.

Personal life and death

In 1955, Hodgkin married Julia Lane, by whom he had two children.

On 9 March 2017, Hodgkin died peacefully at the age of 84 in a hospital in London. Tributes to Hodgkin were made by several figures in British art, including Tate director Nicholas Serota who described Hodgkin as "one of the great artists and colourists of his generation".