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Lot Essay
Having produced his first screenprint in 1964 for a portfolio masterminded by Richard Hamilton for the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Patrick Caulfield waited a full three years before publishing his next graphic works, a set of six screenprints again made in collaboration with Chris Prater at Kelpra Studio. From the first, and right through to the end of his life when he produced his ninetieth print, he worked in essentially the same way, producing an actual-size painting as a maquette from which the printers then cut their stencils. For Caulfield these designs had a status separate from that of his paintings because they were conceived as images to be translated into a printed medium. His perfectionism and his desire to control the precise appearance of the editioned version dictated, however, that these proposals be complete in themselves as finished pictures. Although some of his early designs for screenprints had written notations indicating colours, he soon preferred to hand over to the printers pictures that they could follow precisely in terms both of the outlined imagery and the choice of hues, which they would match in printing inks.
Fig Branch is perhaps the most opulent and visually arresting of a set of four designs published as screenprints by Leslie Waddington Prints in 1972. The other three - Window at Night, Pipe and Napkin and Onions - all feature similarly prosaic objects and make similar play of thick vertical stripes in blues and pinks that recall the colour schemes of a child's nursery but also make cheeky allusion to the Op Art of Bridget Riley. Riley had in fact just begun using thick vertical bands of colour, interrupted by bands of white, as used by Caulfield here, to heighten the intensity of the hues; though Caulfield inflected this stark language of form with his habitual black borders, it seems as though he here even anticipated his Op colleague's next move while also offering an implicit critique of its rigorous abstraction by identifying such high-minded compositions with the patterns of commercially-produced wallpapers. The graceful positioning of the vase and bare branch, complicating the colour scheme and setting off the rigidly rectilinear lines with more organic, curved forms, produces its own form of optical oscillation. With gentle humour, Caulfield demonstrates his ability to take on a distinct pictorial language and to enrich it while staying true to his own terms.
As in his larger paintings, Caulfield here chooses objects that are appropriate to the dimensions of the picture, so that they are depicted at what appears to be sight size. This enables him to engage in extremes of simplification while maintaining contact with reality. The slight bend in the branch brilliantly evokes a sensation of the shallow space in which that pictorial invention is held forever in suspenseful stillness.
We are very grateful to Marco Livingstone for preparing this catalogue entry.
Fig Branch is perhaps the most opulent and visually arresting of a set of four designs published as screenprints by Leslie Waddington Prints in 1972. The other three - Window at Night, Pipe and Napkin and Onions - all feature similarly prosaic objects and make similar play of thick vertical stripes in blues and pinks that recall the colour schemes of a child's nursery but also make cheeky allusion to the Op Art of Bridget Riley. Riley had in fact just begun using thick vertical bands of colour, interrupted by bands of white, as used by Caulfield here, to heighten the intensity of the hues; though Caulfield inflected this stark language of form with his habitual black borders, it seems as though he here even anticipated his Op colleague's next move while also offering an implicit critique of its rigorous abstraction by identifying such high-minded compositions with the patterns of commercially-produced wallpapers. The graceful positioning of the vase and bare branch, complicating the colour scheme and setting off the rigidly rectilinear lines with more organic, curved forms, produces its own form of optical oscillation. With gentle humour, Caulfield demonstrates his ability to take on a distinct pictorial language and to enrich it while staying true to his own terms.
As in his larger paintings, Caulfield here chooses objects that are appropriate to the dimensions of the picture, so that they are depicted at what appears to be sight size. This enables him to engage in extremes of simplification while maintaining contact with reality. The slight bend in the branch brilliantly evokes a sensation of the shallow space in which that pictorial invention is held forever in suspenseful stillness.
We are very grateful to Marco Livingstone for preparing this catalogue entry.