Howard Hodgkin (Signed by the Artist)

Andrew Graham Dixon

ISBN 10: 0500277699 / ISBN 13: 9780500277690

Published by Thames and Hudson, London, 1994

About this Item

First Edition (Thames and Hudson=NAP). Signed and inscribed by the artist on the half-title page: 'For______ From Howard 1994.' 114 illustrations, 96 in color. As you can see, the covers are very clean and have little to no wear. The French flaps look perfect. The signed half-title page has a small spot at its top right corner, maybe a sticker was there at one point. I don't think there's another imperfection over the entirety of the book. The pages are all bright and clean. I don't see any creasing. No markings. No attachments. And the artist's signed inscription is the only writing to be found anywhere. Check out the prices on signed copies of Howard Hodgkin's books. This one is way below the average. From the front flap: 'Howard Hodgkin is now being acknowledged as one of the great painters of modern times and one of the most inventive and original colorists of the twentieth century. His paintings exist at the margin between representation and abstraction, bright mosaics shot through with hints and glimmerings of recognizable form. They are intelligent objects, constantly in dialogue with the art of the past, but they wear their learning lightly. The cryptic intensity of Hodgkin's art stems from the artist's self-confessed desire to be true to his own feelings, to embody his passions and fears, his aspirations and anxieties, in the often refractory medium of oil paint. His art is both tender and profound. Andrew Graham Dixon study of Hodgkin's work is the first monograph to have been published on the artist. Written in a free and discursive spirit, it investigates Hodgkin's rich and complex art through its guiding themes and elucidates the passions and preoccupations that lie behind the paintings. Avoiding the standard chronological course of many monographs, the book focuses on the emotional and intellectual essence of Hodgkin's paintings as the author explores their themes and strategies in great detail. He examines Hodgkin's complex use of scale and color, the nature of his pictorial language, the frequent eroticism of his art, the notions of time and of human experience that it embodies - and finds a perennial tension in the work between exuberance and melancholy. Graham-Dixon argues that Hodgkin is a classic modern painter, but in an old-fashioned sense; an artist who meets Baudelaire's old clarion call for a "painter of modern life." Hodgkin stands confirmed by this richly illustrated study as one of the most remarkable painters of the hesitant, truant nature of human experience, an artist whose great achievement is to have created equivalents, in painting for the texture of memory itself.'. Seller Inventory # 003732

Bibliographic Details

Title: Howard Hodgkin (Signed by the Artist)

Publisher: Thames and Hudson, London

Publication Date: 1994

Binding: Soft cover

Condition: Near Fine

Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Howard Hodgkin is now being acknowledged as one of the great painters of modern times and one of the most inventive and original colorists of the twentieth century. His paintings exist at the margin between representation and abstraction, bright mosaics shot through with hints and glimmerings of recognizable form. They are intelligent objects, constantly in dialogue with the art of the past, but they wear their learning lightly. The cryptic intensity of Hodgkin's art stems from the artist's self-confessed desire to be true to his own feelings, to embody his passions and fears, his aspirations and anxieties, in the often refractory medium of oil paint. His art is both tender and profound.This superbly produced volume is the first monograph to be published on the artist. Andrew Graham-Dixon investigates Hodgkin's rich and complex art through its guiding themes and elucidates the passions and preoccupations that lie behind the paintings. Avoiding the standard chronological course of many monographs, the book focuses on the emotional and intellectual essence of Hodgkin's paintings as the author explores them in great detail. He examines Hodgkin's complex use of scale and color, the nature of his pictorial language, the frequent eroticism of his art, the notions of time and of human experience that it embodies - and finds in the work a perennial tension between exuberance and melancholy. Graham-Dixon argues that Hodgkin is a classic modern painter, but in an old-fashioned sense; an artist who meets Baudelaire's old clarion call for a "painter of modern life."

About the Author:

Andrew Graham-Dixon has presented six landmark series on art for the BBC, including the acclaimed A History of British Art, Renaissance and Art of Eternity, as well as numerous individual documentaries on art and artists. For more than twenty years he has published a weekly column on art, first in the Independent and, more recently, in the Sunday Telegraph. He has written a number of acclaimed books, on subjects ranging from medieval painting and sculpture to the art of the present, including Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane, Art: The Definitive Visual Guide, and Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel.