Marlborough Presents an Exhibition of New Works by Paul Hodgson

Written by Dorothy Diggs Tuesday, 06 December 2011 21:35

LONDON.- “Taken all together, Paul Hodgson’s six new pictures make a powerful address to perennial questions about the self and its ability to articulate an identity, and about faith and its reasonable limits” – Andrew Motion. Hodgson’s new works are concerned with exploring different kinds of uncertainty as a key to pictorial narrative; ‘keys to narrative rather than narrative itself’ he says.

In the catalogue text Motion identifies in the six new “heroic” works elements of doubtfulness, introspection and anguish and suggests that the power and originality of the pictures in fact derives from this intrinsic uncertainty. The exhibition runs through April 23, 2010 at Marlborough Fine Art.

Hodgson’s working methods are complex and fascinating. The process starts with photographing a model in the studio and using the images to begin a full sized painting and a series of studies. These paintings are then photographed and digitally collaged onto an image of the model and then printed onto a separate canvas. Areas of the initial full sized painting are cut and removed in order to incorporate sections of this print. Hodgson then continues to paint on the new, hybrid surface - sometimes scraping back to reveal, sometimes cutting away further sections in order to introduce more of the photographic source.

Published in association with Lintott Press, Cold Eye, is Hodgson’s response to ten poems by Dan Burt. The images deal with Burt’s themes of mortality and moral failure. The book will appear in a limited edition of 100 copies, including an original lithograph, as well as a standard edition.

Marlborough Fine Art was founded in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer who emigrated to England from Vienna, where Lloyd's family had been antique dealers for three generations and Fischer had dealt in antiquarian books. They first met in 1940, as soldiers in the British army. In 1948 they were joined by a third partner, David Somerset, now the Duke of Beaufort, and chairman of Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd.

After the wartime years of recession, London became the principal market for modern art and Marlborough's role in this changing art world was established. It set standards for exhibitions that were worthy of a modern museum. These were reviewed like museum shows, and the gallery became a focus for collectors, museum directors and connoisseurs as well as history of art students. In 1952 Marlborough was already selling masterpieces of late 19th century including bronzes by Edgar Degas and paintings by Mary Cassatt, Paul Signac, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Auguste Renoir amongst others and drawings by Constantine Guys and Vincent van Gogh.

Visit Marlborough Fine Art, London at : http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/

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