Howard Hodgkin

Indian Views A-L, 1971, a set of 12 silkscreen prints, derive from Howard Hodgkin’s travels in India. “The blunt rectangles, though not in the same proportions, are based on the little windows in old-fashioned Indian railway carriages, through which you get the almost keyhole views – concentrated fragments”. Among the subjects are the shapes of hills, sand against the sky in the early morning, red sun over the sea, washing in a garden, dried water-courses and vegetation. The prints were conceived as one work and are meant to be seen together. To make the prints Hodgkin made collages, some of which were smaller than a matchbox, and these were enlarged photographically for the screenprints. The textures which resulted were produced by tonal separations and overprinting. The materials used in the collages include brown paper tape, coloured plastic bicycle tape, corrugated cardboard, torn and cut paper, letrafilm, drawn over with chalk, pentel and impasto acrylic paint.