Howard HODGKIN - NORWICH (1999) - Original etching in colors signed, dated and justified in X/L copies

Howard HODGKIN
NORWICH (1999)

Original etching in colors signed dated and justified in X/L copies
Illustration format 41 X 47 centimeters
Printed by Jack Shirreff at 107 Workshop. Published by Alan Cristea London
Framed to take in the offices of Plazzart 75019
or send in sheet, without frame, without glass

SUMMARY
Norwich is a print that was intended to be a gift to the Elton John Aids Foundation, although in the event the print was not distributed. It was published in an edition of forty and printed by
Jack
Shirreff (born 1943) at the 107 Workshop, near Bath in England. The Tate copy is number forty in the edition. Hodgkin has made prints since the early 1960s and he and Shirreff first worked
together
in 1990, when he produced a number of prints inspired by exotic travel and travel posters (Tate P20058-P20062). He worked with Shirreff again in 1995, producing an edition of prints entitled
Venetian
Views (Tate P20166-P20169). They developed a close working relationship, Shirreff printing and hand-colouring all these editions.

Norwich is a small, brightly colored image that evokes the gestural immediacy of Hodgkin's gem-like paintings. It combines lift-ground aquatint and carborundum, with hand-colouring by Shirreff.
Hodgkin has used an assistant to hand-colour his prints since the late 1970s when he worked on Nick 1977 (Tate P77044) with Maurice Payne at Petersburg Press. Hand-colouring has since become an
integral aspect of the artist's print-making technique. The process of using a 'second' hand to color the printed image was partly suggested by the art historian, Herbert Read (1893-1968).
Hodgkin
remembers having read of the anonymous decorators of pottery, and the memory influenced his practice. However, he no longer recollects the source of Read's description. According to Hodgkin,
the
artist is often tempted to alter an image through successive reinterpretations. In contrast, an assistant can be employed, almost as a mechanical tool, to duplicate marks. The 'original' of
such
hand-repeated marks is always made by an assistant under very close supervision by the artist. (All references from unpublished Tate interview.)


Bibliography:

Catalog raisonné ref 101

Dimensions :
- Height : 41 cm
- Width : 47 cm