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Review
"Acclaim for Andrew Graham-Dixon's Howard Hodgkin 'Great panache... excellent reproductions' - Julian Bell, The Times Literary Supplement 'A persuasive introduction to a particularly beguiling form of painting' - Vogue"
Product Description
Howard Hodgkin is now being acknowledged as one of the great painters of modern times and one of the most inventive and original colourists of the 20th century. His paintings exist at the margin between representation and abstraction, bright mosaics shot through with hints and suggestions and glimmerings of recognisable 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 feelings, to embody his passions and fears, his aspirations and his anxieties, in the medium of oil paint. The humanity of his art is both touching and profound. Andrew Graham-Dixon's study of Hodgkin's work is 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 chronological plod of many monographs, the book focuses on the 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 colour, the nature of his pictorial language, the frequent eroticism of his art and the notions of time and of experience that it embodies - and finds a 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 call for "a painter of modern life". Hodgkin stands confirmed by this richly illustrated study as one of the most remarkable painters of human experience, an artist whose achievement is to have created equivalents, in painting, for the texture of memory itself. Andrew Graham-Dixon has been the art critic of "The Independent" since the newspaper was launched in 1986. He was voted BP Arts Journalist of the Year in 1988 and received the Hawthornden Prize for Art Criticism in 1992.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The very dust-jacket with its dynamic detail from Hodgkin's Old Sky strikes the right note in this intelligently presented and visually seductive review of the painter's career. The excellent quality of the illustrations, their logical placing directly opposite the pertinent text, marginal page references, the choice of type-face and the luxury -feel paper all make the mere handling of the book a real pleasure.
Far from being of mere coffee-table appeal, however, the author's cool authoritative voice makes one feel that here is a critic in whose hands one is safe. Such a gem of wisdom as ' whatever residue of inexplicability lodges in a work of art is also its only hope of an afterlife' establishes his impeccable credentials as a discerning critic. Graham-Dixon deals with Hodgkin's seminal influences, his eclecticism, his evolving theatrical style, his preoccupation with the vagaries of memory and its transmutation into art. 'Hodgkin does not set out to paint what the world looks like, but what it feels like.' His work has the quality of intimacy which makes its own demands on the viewer who would engage with it, Graham-Dixon observes in a book which is lucid and comprehensive without ever wearying the reader.
Far from being of mere coffee-table appeal, however, the author's cool authoritative voice makes one feel that here is a critic in whose hands one is safe. Such a gem of wisdom as ' whatever residue of inexplicability lodges in a work of art is also its only hope of an afterlife' establishes his impeccable credentials as a discerning critic. Graham-Dixon deals with Hodgkin's seminal influences, his eclecticism, his evolving theatrical style, his preoccupation with the vagaries of memory and its transmutation into art. 'Hodgkin does not set out to paint what the world looks like, but what it feels like.' His work has the quality of intimacy which makes its own demands on the viewer who would engage with it, Graham-Dixon observes in a book which is lucid and comprehensive without ever wearying the reader.
Review by Megan O'Beirne, visual artist
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
A passionate and scholarly study of Hodgkin.
5 July 1998
Format:Hardcover
Andrew Graham-Dixon's passionate book about the work of Howard Hodgkin, has the detail and insight serious students of this important artist want. This book is as the first monograph to be published on this artist,a very important purchase. If like me you thirst for really good reproduction,the colour plates are large and do justice to the paintings.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
A readable, sensitive and comprehensive treatment of Hodgkin
23 Feb 2002
Format:Hardcover
The very dust-jacket with its dynamic detail from Hodgkin's Old Sky strikes the right note in this intelligently presented and visually seductive review of the painter's career. The excellent quality of the illustrations, their logical placing directly opposite the pertinent text, marginal page references, the choice of type-face and the luxury-feel paper all make the mere handling of the book a real pleasure.
Far from being of mere coffee-table appeal, however, the author's cool authoritative voice makes one feel that here is a critic in whose hands one is safe. Such a gem of wisdom as 'whatever residue of inexplicability lodges in a work of art is also its only hope of an afterlife' establishes his impeccable credentials as a discerning critic. Graham-Dixon deals with Hodgkin's seminal influences, his eclecticism, his evolving theatrical style, his preoccupation with the vagaries of memory and its transmutation into art. 'Hodgkin does not set out to paint what the world looks like, but what it feels like.' His work has the quality of intimacy which makes its own demands on the viewer who would engage with it, Graham-Dixon observes in a book which is lucid and comprehensive without ever wearying the reader.
Far from being of mere coffee-table appeal, however, the author's cool authoritative voice makes one feel that here is a critic in whose hands one is safe. Such a gem of wisdom as 'whatever residue of inexplicability lodges in a work of art is also its only hope of an afterlife' establishes his impeccable credentials as a discerning critic. Graham-Dixon deals with Hodgkin's seminal influences, his eclecticism, his evolving theatrical style, his preoccupation with the vagaries of memory and its transmutation into art. 'Hodgkin does not set out to paint what the world looks like, but what it feels like.' His work has the quality of intimacy which makes its own demands on the viewer who would engage with it, Graham-Dixon observes in a book which is lucid and comprehensive without ever wearying the reader.
A Poorly Written Book with Great Illustrations
12 April 2012
Format:Hardcover
I had high hopes for this book. The author repeats in theme and variation the same story, each time less convincingly. I hazard to guess that this passes for critical thinking in the UK, I felt swindled.
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