HOWARD HODGKIN | ENTER LAUGHING
Howard Hodgkin, ‘Enter Laughing’, screen print, 1964. Courtesy of Gwen Hughes Fine Art.
Many of Howard Hodgkin’s works had enigmatic titles, as his work was deeply personal, based on emotionally charged moments from his life. And there has been much debate about why his first professionally-produced print (1964) is called ‘Enter Laughing’. Some suggest it’s a stage direction, seeing a figure entering from the wings. Others point to the 1963 John Stein Broadway farce with the same title. Perhaps it’s simply a memory from Hodgkin’s life.
On first sight, Enter Laughing appears to be an abstract work. And Hodgkin was influenced by the Abstract Expressionists on either side of the Atlantic (as well as by Indian miniatures). But he insisted on calling himself a figurative painter. “I would like to be a classical painter,” he once stated… “where all emotional feeling turns into a beautifully articulated, anonymous, architectural memorial at the other end.”
And so we can assume that all the colours and forms: the olive background; the blue triangle; the black and green shapes; the white square, are imbued with metaphorical significance. But it’s not important to decipher exactly what they represent: their importance lies in the mood they exude. This is an artwork that cheers you up.
Hodgkin is best known as a painter, but he kept up a prolific parallel practice as a printmaker, too. Enter Laughing was part of the ICA’s Screen Print Project, organised by Richard Hamilton, featuring prints from 23 of the country’s leading young artists in that heady era, including David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Gillian Ayres and RB Kitaj. Almost all of the 23 went on to have significant careers, and the project helped establish screen printing as a recognised artistic medium.
Hodgkin died in 2017, aged 84, having achieved numerous honours including representing the UK at the Venice Biennale (1984), winning the Turner Prize (1985) and being awarded a knighthood (1992), and an honorary doctorate at Oxford University (2002).
We were kindly sent this image by Gwen Hughes Fine Art, who will be showing this Hodgkin piece (signed in full and numbered from the edition of 40) at Stand 56 on the First Floor, as well as works by John Hoyland (with another screen print from 1964), Prunella Clough, Terry Frost, Kenneth Martin, Victor Pasmore and Mary Potter.