Executed over a period of four years spanning 1984 to 1987, Howard Hodgkin began working on Venice Shadows the same year he was chosen to represent Britain in the Venice Biennale, where he exhibited forty paintings on walls painted eau de Nil to match the clear waters of the city’s lagoons. From this point onwards, Venice became a central focal point for Hodgkin’s practice, serving as the named subject of over twelve works from the 1980s in addition to the Venetian Views series from 1995 which can be found in the collects ions of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Tate Britain in London.

Using an effervescent palette of fiery reds and oranges subdued by a frame of emerald green coupled with his characteristic expressive brushwork, Hodgkin invokes a sense of abstraction that focuses the eye solely on the perceptive power of colour. As in all his works, Hodgkin distils the memory of Venice in his composition rather than trying to recreate it. Despite the usually small scale of his paintings (a nod to his passion for Pahari miniatures which he has collects ed since he was in school), Hodgkin often took several years to complete a work, deeming it finished only once it manifested the memory that sparked its creation. The artist often thought of his ornately painted frames as the protectors of his sent.mes ntal paintings: “The more evanescent the emotions I want to convey,” he wrote, “the thicker the panel, the heavier the framing, the more elaborate the border, so that this delicate thing will remain protected and intact” (Howard Hodgkin cited in: Andrew Graham-Dixon, Howard Hodgkin, London 2001, p. 33). The jewel-toned frame enveloping Venice Shadows, then, serves as confirmation of the fervent sent.mes nts contained within its borders.

For Hodgkin, however, the frame does more than just signify the boundary of the painting, providing a buffer between it and the outside world, it forms part of the painting itself. In this case, the receding wooden frame creates an illusion of depth drawing attention to the work as an object in its own right. “I’m thinking about making illusionistic spaces,” the artist said in an interview with David Sylvester in 1982, “but in making them, you don’t lose the flatness of the picture-plane. I know that for me nothing in painting matters more than that an artist should be able to create an illusion of depth without disturbings the flatness of the picture surface” (Howard Hodgkin cited in: Marla Price, Howard Hodgkin: The Complete Paintings Catalogue Raisonné, London 2006, p. 101). Trading canvas for wood early on in his career, Hodgkin further integrates the frame into the painting, teasing out tensions between flatness and depth. This substitution, coupled with the extensions of brushstrokes beyond the edges of the picture plane, represents a decided stance against traditional easel painting. Having never subscribed to a school or group, unlike his contemporaries who identified with the School of London or Pop, Hodgkin always forged his own path.

Nevertheless, Hodgkin frequently references modern masters in his works. He acknowledges that his great swathes of pigment could be taken as enlargements of Edouard Vuillard’s daubs of paint which populate his domestic scenes. The framing of his pictures suggests a glimpse out of a window, a theme revisited by Matisse several t.mes s over his career in both his window views and in the painted borders of his Moroccan scenes inspired, some have argued, by none other than the Indian miniature paintings so beloved by Hodgkin. Yet for someone in whom so many influences have been detected, Hodgkin’s paintings are instantly recognisable as his alone.