Howard Hodgkin: The Tongue-tied Painter Of Feelings

An Old Etonian, a rebel, a Romantic in thrall to classicism – Howard Hodgkin was a true enigma. Here, his friend Michael Glover recalls a genius who was almost incapable of talking about the work that consumed him.

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His voice, always fairly plummy, made him sound the very epitome of respectability, though he was by no means a ready talker on the subject that concerned him most: painting. Painting was his lifelong passion, of course – he knew that he wanted to be a painter and nothing but a painter from the age of five, immediately after he had drawn a picture of a woman with a red face and bushy hair – but he always found it difficult to talk about that which consumed him until his dying day.

In fact, he could be maddeningly obtuse, high-handed and even downright patronising when questioned about his own work. Or just puzzlingly, vexingly silent, looking down. Or, after a long pause, he might say something to you such as the following: “I think you will find that I have already answered that question in a statement I made in the autumn issue of Art for Art’s Sake.” Or some such. This was maddening in the extreme. There was a reason for it though. According to Howard, paintings existed to be looked at, absorbed, slowly and painstakingly, by the eye. He thought that nothing should come between the painting and the scrutinising eye, and certainly nothing as vulgar as mere words, which he once described as the Englishman’s disease. When in the presence of great works – his two favourites were Poussin and Seurat – the better part was an awestruck, reverential silence. Why sully the air with useless and inadequate words?