SIR HOWARD HODGKIN C.H., C.B.E. (BRITISH 1932-2017) BORDER (FROM INDIAN WAVES SERIES), 1990-1991 signed, titled and dated (to reverse), gouache on intaglio impressed khadi paper 72.7cm x 91.8cm (28 5/8in x 36 1/8in) The Artist;Gagosian, London, from whom acquired by the present owner, November 2014. Exhibited:Gagosian, London, Indian Waves, 28 November 2014 - 31 January 2015; CSMVS, Mumbai, India, Howard Hodgkin Paintings, 1984-2015, 21 February - 15 April 2015 Howard Hodgkin’s Indian Waves series was painted across 1990 and 1991 at the master printer Jack Shirreff’s 107 Workshop in Wiltshire, after which they were packed away in brown paper and stored. It was only when Shirreff retired that they were rediscovered, forming the basis for an exhibition at Gagosian, London, in November 2014.The works were made in three stages. First, Hodgkin brushed a paste of liquidised carbon filings (carborundum) over a printing plate to create waves, the form of which would emboss the paper when run through a press. Each image in the series was then given a printed blue and green layer, making thirty similar bases. From these, Hodgkin created thirty remarkably different works by implementing a final process of painting free-hand over the top in thick gouache, evoking his decades-long experience of India, entwining place, people, memory and impressions, in works such as Mumbai Wedding, Storm in Goa, Hill Station, Chowpatty Beach and, of course, Border. Hodgkin had first visited India in 1964, where he became enraptured by the country. As he noted in 2014, at the time of the Indian Waves exhibition: ‘India is totally exotic, everyone speaks English and everything is so transparent. Emotion is so close to the surface and on view… I was fascinated by India before I ever went there’. (Quoted in an interview with Mark Hudson, Daily Telegraph, 29th November 2014)In 1978, during an extended sojourn in Ahmedabad as a guest of a prominent Indian family, Hodgkin had created a body of works on hand-made khadi paper, a traditional paper made from rags, that he had painted on whilst still wet. These were tied up in a bundle and put on the roof of a taxi, but went missing on the way to the airport, much to the devastation of the artist. The lost bundle did eventually turn up, becoming known as the Indian Leaves series upon exhibition at the Tate in 1982. However, Hodgkin had already decided to make a new series to replace them – using carborundum on dry khadi paper to recreate the liquid sensation of working ‘wet on wet’ in Ahmedabad. This series was to become Indian Waves which, along with Indian Leaves, is the only series fully painted on khadi. The series as a whole – and Border in particular – bears all the hallmarks of Hodgkin’s mature style, in the layering of sumptuous colour upon colour, in its pure abstraction which is simultaneously evocative of place, from the steaming forests of the Sundarbans through to the dry, cool air of the Himalayas. Border seems to symbolise the latter, a sunset over glacial peaks, with a slight change in colour that places it a few thousand feet further up from its companion in the series, Hill Station, the deep red sunset of the which has become starved of oxygen, turning the most beautiful pink. The work’s colours – this resonant pink, an icy, milky blue and a rich crimson, set against an encompassing green mandala – certainly have a Himalayan feel, the soft colours of Tibetan Buddhism, wind-blown and sun-faded. This field of colour is laid out by Hodgkin in flowing brushstrokes, sweeping horizontally, left to right, right to left, with the gestural bravura for which Hodgkin is celebrated. These brushstrokes then entwine with carborundum-intaglio surface, adding depth and intrigue. Hodgkin is rightly regarded as the most painterly of print-makers and the Indian Waves series is, in a way, a gesture of return, bringing one of his favourite printmaking techniques into the heart of his painting practise.Having been shown originally shown at Gagosian, London, Border was one of eleven works from Indian Waves selected for an exhibition celebrating Hodgkin’s paintings of India, held at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai in 2015.
