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拍品专文
Born in London, Patrick Caulfield studied under the guidance of Prunella Clough and Jack Smith at Chelsea School of Art (1956-59), and afterwards at Royal College of Art (1960-63), where he was a year behind a group that included Derek Boshier, David Hockney, Allen Jones, R.B. Kitaj and Peter Phillips. After Caulfield left the R.C.A., Lawrence Gowing, principal at Chelsea, offered Caulfield a part-time teaching post which he held until 1971.
Eschewing the 'Pop' artist label, Caulfield instead preferred the term 'formal' artist, and he drew inspiration from the works of the Spanish Cubist, Juan Gris. Other influences that fed into Caulfield's work included postcard images of Minoan frescoes that he collected during a trip to Greecein 1960, financed with the money from two prizes won at Chelsea. The flattening of form and use of bright colour, typical of Caulfield's work, can be seen in his first screenprint, Ruins, 1964.
Boats at Brindisi was painted in 1966, two years after Caulfield was included in The New Generation, a key group show at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, alongside artists including Hockney, Allen Jones, Bridget Riley and Brett Whiteley. Two of the four paintings that Caulfield exhibited were in a landscape format that he favoured for many works between 1964-68 and which he adopted for the present work.
Writing about Caulfield's comparable 1964 oil, View of the Bay (Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon), which was included in Caulfield's first solo exhibition at the Robert Fraser Gallery, London, 1965, Marco Livingstone comments, 'The scene of colourful boats bobbing gently on a deep blue sea dappled with brilliant sunshine, in the protective enclosure of a picturesque Mediterranean harbour, plays shamelessly on the laziest escapist fantasy of an eternal holiday. It is a picture-postcard prettiness, the prettiness of the Fauve-influenced modern art of a painter such as Dufy, to which it is all too easy to succumb. By conflating the two sources - the commercial travel brochure with the 'blue-chip' modern art collected by the prosperous bourgeoisie - Caulfield punctures the dream that provides a common bond between them [...] The brushstrokes of pure colour that denote the rippling surface of the water are self-confessed degraded variations on Impressionist and Post-Impressionist technique: the kind of mark once presented in evidence of an optical phenomenon observed at first-hand relegated now to a trick of the trade, a mere slight of hand.'
'How is it, then, that when the artist has confessed in no uncertain terms to the fact that he has produced nothing more than an elaborate fiction, one which presses all the right buttons and relies for its success on the viewer's willingness to play along, it is possible still to respond to the picture with the same delight one might feel if one really were in the open air, under a clear blue sky, enjoying the vista and atmosphere of dolce far niente? The answer, of course is that the artist and his audience conspire with each other just long enough to escape the mundane reality of humdrum daily life. The painter has whiled away his hours picturing himself far from his studio and freed of the pressures of creating his work. It is in fact that very quality of giving free rein to the imagination that has made the stress of art-making bearable. So it is that the viewer in turn, with a knowing wink, is allowed to luxuriate in the thought of things far away' (Patrick Caulfield Paintings, Aldershot, 2005, p. 49).
Louise Jury, Arts Correspondent for The Independent, commented, 'Lucian Freud is usually cited as Britain's greatest living painter, though some might fight for David Hockney or Frank Auerbach. But the death of Patrick Caulfield, one of the most important artists of the British Pop Art generation, at 69 prompted his friend and fellow artist Howard Hodgkin to claim that it will be Caulfield who will be remembered in the future' (see The Independent, 1 October 2005, p. 3).
We would like to thank Marco Livingstone for his help in preparing this entry.
Eschewing the 'Pop' artist label, Caulfield instead preferred the term 'formal' artist, and he drew inspiration from the works of the Spanish Cubist, Juan Gris. Other influences that fed into Caulfield's work included postcard images of Minoan frescoes that he collected during a trip to Greecein 1960, financed with the money from two prizes won at Chelsea. The flattening of form and use of bright colour, typical of Caulfield's work, can be seen in his first screenprint, Ruins, 1964.
Boats at Brindisi was painted in 1966, two years after Caulfield was included in The New Generation, a key group show at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, alongside artists including Hockney, Allen Jones, Bridget Riley and Brett Whiteley. Two of the four paintings that Caulfield exhibited were in a landscape format that he favoured for many works between 1964-68 and which he adopted for the present work.
Writing about Caulfield's comparable 1964 oil, View of the Bay (Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon), which was included in Caulfield's first solo exhibition at the Robert Fraser Gallery, London, 1965, Marco Livingstone comments, 'The scene of colourful boats bobbing gently on a deep blue sea dappled with brilliant sunshine, in the protective enclosure of a picturesque Mediterranean harbour, plays shamelessly on the laziest escapist fantasy of an eternal holiday. It is a picture-postcard prettiness, the prettiness of the Fauve-influenced modern art of a painter such as Dufy, to which it is all too easy to succumb. By conflating the two sources - the commercial travel brochure with the 'blue-chip' modern art collected by the prosperous bourgeoisie - Caulfield punctures the dream that provides a common bond between them [...] The brushstrokes of pure colour that denote the rippling surface of the water are self-confessed degraded variations on Impressionist and Post-Impressionist technique: the kind of mark once presented in evidence of an optical phenomenon observed at first-hand relegated now to a trick of the trade, a mere slight of hand.'
'How is it, then, that when the artist has confessed in no uncertain terms to the fact that he has produced nothing more than an elaborate fiction, one which presses all the right buttons and relies for its success on the viewer's willingness to play along, it is possible still to respond to the picture with the same delight one might feel if one really were in the open air, under a clear blue sky, enjoying the vista and atmosphere of dolce far niente? The answer, of course is that the artist and his audience conspire with each other just long enough to escape the mundane reality of humdrum daily life. The painter has whiled away his hours picturing himself far from his studio and freed of the pressures of creating his work. It is in fact that very quality of giving free rein to the imagination that has made the stress of art-making bearable. So it is that the viewer in turn, with a knowing wink, is allowed to luxuriate in the thought of things far away' (Patrick Caulfield Paintings, Aldershot, 2005, p. 49).
Louise Jury, Arts Correspondent for The Independent, commented, 'Lucian Freud is usually cited as Britain's greatest living painter, though some might fight for David Hockney or Frank Auerbach. But the death of Patrick Caulfield, one of the most important artists of the British Pop Art generation, at 69 prompted his friend and fellow artist Howard Hodgkin to claim that it will be Caulfield who will be remembered in the future' (see The Independent, 1 October 2005, p. 3).
We would like to thank Marco Livingstone for his help in preparing this entry.