HOWARDHODGKIN_ CONCERT II
am a represenLalional painter,but not a painter of appearances.I paint representqtionql appearances of emotional situations.- Howard Hodgkin
sides of the image, creating a moody proscenium effect. There are no figures yet on the stage. To my mind, he is presenting the moment before the performer arrives, when the stage, indeed the entire hall, is quietly electric with the emotion of anticipation." The artist explains: "The image is meant to enable the 'listening' spectator[s] to feel that they can go wherever they want-that their imagination can have total freedom. as if thev were at a greatconcert."
The gestural, abstract quality of Hodgkin's brush strokes suggests spontaneity, or quick generation. The transient, emotionally charged However, the final imagery is often the nature of music and its tendency to result of several years of work. Auping leave meaning open to interpretation explains: "An irony that Hodgkin conmake British painter Howard Hodgkin stantly plays on is his ability to make a a natural choice to create a visual rep- painting seem almost casually renresentation of the Twelfth Van Cliburn dered, while revealing its most signifiInternational Piano Competition. His cant details slowly." Indeed, the more i"nternationally recognized technique time one spends vvith Concert, the emphasizes the emotional state of a deeper the colors floq causinga more subject as much as, if not more than, pronounced energy to build. This its physical aspects. sense of movement is integral to Hodgkin's work, as the artist has Staying true to his signature form, always been interested in capturing Hodgkin has created Concert for the transitory moments in time. Hodgkin Twelfth Competition. The watercolor remarks, "One of the reasons I use on paper measures 18 inches by 21 frames in the way I do has to do with inches-a typical size for Hodgkin, my instinct that the more tenuous or who utilizes concentrated color, line. fleeting the emotion you want to presand texture to evoke a senseof energy ent, the more it's got to be protected and emotion. Various intensities of from the world.'' The anxious, pregblue and black shape the piece, which nant moment contained in the vortex is comprised exclusively of horizontal of Concertsuggeststhis most protectand vertical strokes. Outer bands cre- ed, sacred of moments-the time ate a rectangular framework for the between competition and victory. serenely blue, yet pulsing and dynamic, central core. Van Cliburn Foundation president Richard Rodzinski expresseshis pleasMichael Auping, chief curator at the ure with the work: "We are profoundModern Art Museum of Fort Worth, ly grateful to Sir Howard for not only believes Concert is a "classic Hodgkin agreeing to create the image for the presentation of the threading together Twelfth Competition, but also for the of the visual and psychological ener- subtle thought behind the work: creatgy" at a concert. "Two dark, curtain- ing a senseof hushed wonder with fullike planes flank the left and right fillment yet to come."
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Hodgkin emerged as a major contemporury artist in the early I970s. In 1985, he won the much-coveted Turner Prize for contemporary British art, and less than a decade later received his knighthood. Howard Hodghin:Paintings 1975-1995,a major exhibition organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and then traveled to Fort Worth and Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1996. In 2000, Hodgkin was awarded an honorary doctor of letters by Oxford University Born and raised in London, Hodgkin moved to New York at the age of eight, where he visited the Museum of Modern Art, something to which he attributes his initial interest in art. "My real career as a painter began by looking at pictures in New York," Hodgkin has said. Upon moving back to England, he studied at Camberwell Art School and Bath Academy of Art, where he later taught classes.Hodgkin also taught at the Charterhouse School of Art; was a visiting lecturer at Slade School of Art and Chelsea School of Art; served as an artist-in-residence at Brasenose College Oxford; and was named a trustee of the Tate Gallery and National Gallery in London. Howard Hodgkin is the fifth artist in the Foundation's history to create original artwork for a Cliburn Competition. Robert Rauschenberg's mixed media work was the first in 1989, followed by Ivan Chermayeff's collage in 1993, Sean Scully's 10.6.93 in 1997, and Tom Phillips' Music World I and Music World II for the 2001 Competition.
The commissioningof Concert was madepossibleby the generousunderwriting o/ Mr. and Mrs. Charles Anton, in memory of their son, Robert E Anton. The Antons have underwritten this competition project since 7989.