John Hoyland
12.5.73, 1973
Acrylic on canvas
76 x 76 cm
29 7/8 x 29 7/8 in
Framed: 78.5 x 78.5 cm
30 7/8 x 30 7/8 in
29 7/8 x 29 7/8 in
Framed: 78.5 x 78.5 cm
30 7/8 x 30 7/8 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.
12.5.73 is a spectacular example of one of Hoyland’s smaller scale paintings. In the 1970s more varied forms emerged in Hoyland's work, including thick, impasto layers to add further texture. Rectangles lose their regularity of shape and become ragged-edged, step-like forms clearly readable as figure against ground.
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.
12.5.73 is a spectacular example of one of Hoyland’s smaller scale paintings. In the 1970s more varied forms emerged in Hoyland's work, including thick, impasto layers to add further texture. Rectangles lose their regularity of shape and become ragged-edged, step-like forms clearly readable as figure against ground.
Provenance
2021 - present: Private collection, London, UK2019 - 2021: Private collection, UK (sold via Waddington Galleries, London, UK)
Private collection (sold via Galerie Josine Bokhoven, Amsterdam)