R.B.K. Howard Hodgkin 1969-70 Oil paint on wood 1091 x 1395 mm

(Tate, 1997)

R.B.K is a portrait of American painter R.B. Kitaj (Ronald Brooks Kitaj) at a time when Hodgkin’s painted a series of works which included friends and figures from the art world of the sixties and seventies. Compositionally the figure can be seen through the diagonal shutter-like structure where beyond there appears to be another rectangular shaped frame, perhaps a window. Through this opening there is a further abstracted composition giving a hint of possible landscape beyond the obscured portrait.

Hodgkin had a fascination with frames often painting gestural compositions covering both surface and frame. R.B.K is painted onto a prepared wooden support which includes the physical pine wood frame rendered red on three sides and the rest light green. Hodgkin challenges the frame in a traditional sense making it inclusive to the work as opposed to being an addition or enhancement added by a third party. ‘It is a form of control, making sure that the object’s completeness cannot be interrupted by a frame placed around it by somebody else’. (Burns, 2016)

In the tradition of framing the physical frame protects, separates and defines the artwork in the space. Hodgkin’s concentrates the viewer’s attention making the frame intrinsic to his painting. For him, ‘the frame is not something to be added as protection or separation … Rather it is a device that must either be incorporated physically into the painting as part of its making, or created as an illusion to give definition to his subject. …. In Hodgkin’s work, the edge of the painting becomes important and the space within is contained and specific’. (Serota, 2006)

Bibliography

Image: Tate (1997). R.B.K. [image] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hodgkin-r-b-k-t07342 [Accessed 7 Nov. 2019].

Burns, C. (2016). Howard Hodgkin: ‘I felt like an outcast in the art world’. The Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/may/04/howard-hodgkin-painting-new-york# [Accessed 7 Nov. 2019].

Serota, N. (2006). Howard Hodgkin: Bold, unconventional and uncompromising. The Independent. [online] Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/howard-hodgkin-bold-unconventional-and-uncompromising-482235.html [Accessed 7 Nov. 2019].