John Hoyland
10.4.65, 1965
Watercolour on paper
38.1 x 55.9 cm
15 x 22 in
Framed: 45.1 x 68.6 x 3.2 cm
17 3/4 x 27 x 1 1/4 in
15 x 22 in
Framed: 45.1 x 68.6 x 3.2 cm
17 3/4 x 27 x 1 1/4 in
John Hoyland (b.1934 Sheffield, UK – d.2011 London, UK) was one of the most inventive and dynamic abstract painters of the post-war period. Over the span of more than a...
John Hoyland (b.1934 Sheffield, UK – d.2011 London, UK) was one of the most inventive and dynamic abstract painters of the post-war period. Over the span of more than a half-century his art and attitudes constantly evolved. A distinctive artistic personality emerged, concerned with colour, painterly drama, with both excess and control, with grandeur and above all, with the vehement communication of feeling.
Hoyland was born in Sheffield in 1934 to a working class family. He had an early interest in art and enrolled in the local art school at the age of eleven, before studying at the Royal Academy in London from 1956 to 1960. While at the Royal Academy he first encountered the art of French painter Nicholas de Staël and saw the influential display of American Abstract Expressionism in The New American Painting show at Tate Gallery in 1959. Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, slightly later Morris Louis and Hans Hofmann, joined his early loves of Matisse, Van Gogh, Rouault and Chaïm Soutine. Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell would become an important friend and mentor. In the 1960s and 1970s Hoyland’s art developed in dialogue with American artists including Kenneth Noland and Larry Poons, with British modernist sculpture another important exemplar – sculptor Anthony Caro became a life-long friend.
After leaving the Royal Academy in 1960, Hoyland was included in the influential Situation exhibitions and was later selected as a New Generation artist at the Whitechapel Gallery. In 1964, Hoyland first visited New York City, where he would go on to live and work for extended periods in the late 1960s and early 1970s. On returning to London after this first influential trip to America, Hoyland started work on a group of paintings that mark his artistic maturity.
10.4.65 is an early watercolor work on paper, created during the key period of Hoyland’s large scale color-stained canvases of the 1960s. Mel Gooding described the 1960s works as: ‘high-key deep greens, reds, violets and oranges deployed in radiant fields, stark blocks and shimmering columns of ultra-vibrant colour. It was an achievement in scale and energy, sharpness of definition, originality and expressive power unmatched by any of his contemporaries, and unparalleled in modern British art’ (Gooding, 2011). Very much in keeping with canvas counterparts, the watercolor works were titled solely with the date of their completion. The works can be viewed as a visual diary.
Works from this era were exhibited in his first solo museum show at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1967; his defining retrospective at the Serpentine Gallery (1979–80); and his solo exhibition at Newport Street Gallery (2015-2016).
Hoyland was born in Sheffield in 1934 to a working class family. He had an early interest in art and enrolled in the local art school at the age of eleven, before studying at the Royal Academy in London from 1956 to 1960. While at the Royal Academy he first encountered the art of French painter Nicholas de Staël and saw the influential display of American Abstract Expressionism in The New American Painting show at Tate Gallery in 1959. Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, slightly later Morris Louis and Hans Hofmann, joined his early loves of Matisse, Van Gogh, Rouault and Chaïm Soutine. Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell would become an important friend and mentor. In the 1960s and 1970s Hoyland’s art developed in dialogue with American artists including Kenneth Noland and Larry Poons, with British modernist sculpture another important exemplar – sculptor Anthony Caro became a life-long friend.
After leaving the Royal Academy in 1960, Hoyland was included in the influential Situation exhibitions and was later selected as a New Generation artist at the Whitechapel Gallery. In 1964, Hoyland first visited New York City, where he would go on to live and work for extended periods in the late 1960s and early 1970s. On returning to London after this first influential trip to America, Hoyland started work on a group of paintings that mark his artistic maturity.
10.4.65 is an early watercolor work on paper, created during the key period of Hoyland’s large scale color-stained canvases of the 1960s. Mel Gooding described the 1960s works as: ‘high-key deep greens, reds, violets and oranges deployed in radiant fields, stark blocks and shimmering columns of ultra-vibrant colour. It was an achievement in scale and energy, sharpness of definition, originality and expressive power unmatched by any of his contemporaries, and unparalleled in modern British art’ (Gooding, 2011). Very much in keeping with canvas counterparts, the watercolor works were titled solely with the date of their completion. The works can be viewed as a visual diary.
Works from this era were exhibited in his first solo museum show at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1967; his defining retrospective at the Serpentine Gallery (1979–80); and his solo exhibition at Newport Street Gallery (2015-2016).