Archive: Issue No. 65, January 2003

There can be little doubt that had painter Robert Hodgins been living elsewhere and part of the gallery system of London, Cologne or New York, he would long ago have been widely recognised as the contemporary master that he is. Practising in a country which has only relatively recently - in the last ten years, that is - begun to be accepted as part of the international art world, his light has been hidden under the bushel of cultural isolation. His lyrical, radiant paintings with their dark undertones have been pretty much for South African eyes only.

This phenomenon is noted in Undiscovered at 82, by Kendell Geers, one of the essayists in Robert Hodgins, the monograph recently published by Tafelberg. Geers recalls a famous Cork Street gallerist scoffing at Hodgins' work as being derivative of English painters like Howard Hodgkin and Francis Bacon. Geers points out that had Hodgins based his career in his native England, these influences, openly acknowledged by the artist, might actually have increased his market status.In any case, influence schminfluence. As this book makes abundantly clear, Hodgins has his own unique vision, mordant, satirical, lyrical, of its time and yet universal. The freedom of his loose brushwork is underpinned by a sharply observant eye. He is in thrall to intense colour, and his ability to make it sing is unrivalled. What a pleasure it is then, to have page after page of Hodgins' brilliant paintings reproduced for our consumption.

Robert Hodgins examines the artist's life and work from the points of view of not only Geers, with his precise understanding of the shallow, money-driven nature of the international art world, but of a number of other heavyweights in the field of South African art criticism as well. Editor Brenda Atkinson gives a general introduction � "Hodgins is prolific. Visits to his studio garden find it erupting perpetually with extraordinary flora - canvases placed out of doors to dry, faces tilted brightly to the sun. Walking among them is like walking the rows of a mad botanist's hothouse, where fabulous hybrids grow." Next up is an interview the artist conducts with himself, in which I discovered that Hodgins had been a journalist with Newscheck for four years - "I resigned oh, about twelve times, painted and drew in Hillbrow, chucked it and went back." Rayda Becker considers his work against the background of the South African context. Ivor Powell contributes Through Ubu's Eyes, examining the "ambiguities of perception, memory and historicity as the overriding subject matter of his art-making." There is a conversation between Hodgins and his colleagues and on occasion, close collaborators William Kentridge and Deborah Bell. Says Kentridge, "One of things you can do as an artist is to see uncertainty as a virtue rather than as a failure. If you're an accountant, then uncertainty won't do, but as an artist you can afford to have those incomplete moments." Providing insights like these, the three ruminate on what it means to be an artist. Finally, in The Old Man Mad About Painting, Michael Godby examines Hodgins' late work in the context of British art historian Kenneth Clark's assertion that after the age of "at the most, seventy-five" the ideas of the artist are in decline. In a well-reasoned essay, Godby effectively debunks this assertion.

If there is a criticism of this celebration of the work of one of the country's most important artists, it is that the designer of the book apparently got a little over excited by Hodgins, and has suffused the opening pages in a variety of colours from the artist's palette. Crisp white would have been a better lead in to the master's work.

The publication of the book has been supported by the Goodman Gallery, First National Bank and the Aardklop Festival. It is a most important addition to the growing canon of monographs on the artists of this country, but it goes beyond that. Hodgins, more than any other artist I know, works at his craft from a sense of pure joy, and of unending inquiry into the very nature of painting and its infinite possibilities for discovery and invention. Most importantly, he is able to convey these sensations in words. It is a rare gift.

One hopes that this handsome volume will gain wide distribution, both here and overseas. It is available from the better bookstores and from the Goodman Gallery.