Howard Hodgkin - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York Wednesday, November 16, 2022 | Phillips

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  • Tea with Mrs. Parikh is the first of two versions dedicated to the artist’s friend in Mumbai. Howard Hodgkin was enamored with India and returned there almost annually ever since he first made the trip to the country in 1964 at the age of 32. Initially inspired by 17th century Mughal art during his school years at Eton, Hodgkin built a collection of 122 works from the Mughal period over his lifetime. Holding a special place in his heart, India is the source of some of Hodgkin’s most vibrant and celebrated compositions, as evidenced in the present example.

     “[India], I couldn’t work without it.”
    – Howard Hodgkin

    Hodgkin’s diaries from his visits to India are full of the same color, energy, and vivacity that we find in his paintings. An excerpt from his diary on January 25, 1975, while the current work was being painted, provides an insight into his packed schedule visiting friends among his inspirational surroundings:
    "Delhi morning. Get tickets for Ooty and beyond, and then off to Qutb… More beautiful than on previous visit, because of the beautiful light and the happy atmosphere of Saturday, with people, families, and school parties. Rugs laid on the ground and picnics for 40. Very dull lunch and then dinner with Tyeb Mehta, the painter... Sparkling evening with much Indian whiskey and little lovely food."
    – Howard Hodgkin

    Tea with Mrs. Parikh reveals emotions, recalls friendship and refers to a particular moment in time. The recreation of this specific friendly intimacy took place over a three-year period, a recurring feature in Hodgkin’s works, particularly the earlier examples. Now recognized as a central medium in Hodgkin’s oeuvre, the wooden panel support was first used by the artist in his India Paintings, like this one. By adopting a wooden support, Hodgkin was able to rework his surfaces numerous times over several years.

     

    Enclosed in the artist’s recognizable painted frame, the present work is alive with color, gesture and moving forms, each element seamlessly flowing into the next, leading the viewer’s eye through the abstracted composition. By continuing the reaches of the picture plane onto the frame itself, Hodgkin successfully breaks with compositional convention and blurs traditional boundaries. The dappled block forms, strong wavy lines and layering of colorful brushstrokes, all form part of a constructed language of representation that Hodgkin was trying to develop, appealing to the viewer’s sense of intrigue, and seducing them to study the work for longer.

     

    Hodgkin’s Admiration for Henri Matisse

     

    Hodgkin’s application of pattern and color exemplify his reverence for the 20th century master, Henri Matisse. As a teenager, Howard Hodgkin was gifted Alfred Barr’s Matisse - His Art and His Public by his father, and the importance of Matisse’s works on the young Hodgkin had a profound and immediate effect: “I got the book, I went to bed and didn’t get up for several days, until I’d read it twice."¹

     

    In a BBC documentary with Alastair Sooke in 2010, Hodgkin stated, "I wouldn’t be the painter I am if Matisse had never existed … there was a feeling on his part that nothing mattered more than art and he knew a great deal about pictorial space...They [the paintings] don’t depend on the subject matter. They don’t depend on visible emotion. They are just themselves.”

     

    The importance of Henri Matisse’s application of color, mark making and use of pattern are exquisitely evidenced in the present work. Similar to Matisse’s belief that pictures are simply themselves, in his own mark making, Hodgkin insisted on the importance of avoiding the “autograph mark." For Hodgkin, a mark should be just that, allowing individual marks to have a combined meaning once placed next to one another.

     

     Modern Masters: Henri Matisse – Howard Hodgkin. Howard Hodgkin tells Alastair Sooke about the genius of Henri Matisse, and the influence his work has had on his own paintings.

     

    Hodgkin is one of Britain’s most celebrated painters. In 1984 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, and in 1985 he was awarded the Turner Prize. First shown in the United States in 1995-1996, his works were met with critical acclaim at his exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which went on to travel to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf; and the Hayward Gallery, London. In 2006, Hodgkin was honored with his first comprehensive retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, which later moved to Tate Britain, London, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Hodgkin made his final trip to India in the autumn of 2016. During this visit, he completed six new works which were exhibited at the Hepworth Wakefield’s exhibition in 2017, Painting India. The exhibition was a celebration of Hodgkin’s deep-seated love of the Indian subcontinent, and the sister work to the present example, Tea with Mrs. Parikh (second version) was shown here.

     

     ¹ Howard Hodgkin, quoted in Judd Tully, "Remembering Howard Hodgkin, an Interview," JuddTully, March 14, 2017, online

    • Provenance

      Kasmin Gallery, London
      Waddington Galleries, London
      Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      New York, André Emmerich Gallery, Howard Hodgkin: New Paintings, September 15–October 5, 1977
      London, Hayward Gallery, Hayward Annual: Current British Art selected by Michael Compton, Howard Hodgkin and William Turnbull, Part Two, July, 20–September 4, 1977, no. 157, p. 138 (incorrect dimensions listed)

    • Literature

      Donald B. Kuspit, "Howard Hodgkin at Emmerich," Art in America, vol. 65, November–December 1977, p. 134
      Marla Price, Howard Hodgkin: The Complete Paintings Catalogue Raisonné, London, 2006, no. 142, p. 154 (incorrect image illustrated with incorrect dimensions)

    • Artist Biography

      Howard Hodgkin

      British • 1932 - 2017

      One of the greatest colorists of his generation, Howard Hodgkin explores the very nature of painting as both cultured language and sheer expression. He disregards the classical polarities of abstraction and representation, past and present, canvas and frame, using gestural brushstrokes and a vivid palette to emphasize the picture plane, while simultaneously seeking to convey memories and emotions.

      The seemingly casual, urgent quality of his paintings and prints belies a drawn-out process of making: it could take a year for Hodgkin to prepare to execute a single brushstroke. The resultant maximalist, saturated works on canvas, paper, wood and board can be intimately scaled and jewel-like, or oversized, opulent and theatrical. Whilst his early compositions have a collaged, geometric flatness, Hodgkin's later work (including etching and aquatint prints) increasingly incorporated more lush surface textures and complex, fluid patterns reminiscent of the Pahari miniatures from India, of which he was an avid collector.

      View More Works

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Tea with Mrs. Parikh

oil on wood
18 1/4 x 20 1/4 in. (46.4 x 51.4 cm)
Executed in 1974-1977.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$280,000 - 350,000 

Sold for $478,800

Contact Specialist

Annie Dolan
Specialist, Head of Day Sale, Morning Session
+1 212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session

New York Auction 16 November 2022