Patrick Caulfield
Encyclopedia
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, RA (29 January 1936 – 29 September 2005) was an English painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and printmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements of Photorealism
Photorealism
Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears photographic...
within a pared down scene.
Life and work
Patrick Caulfield studied at the Chelsea School of Art from 1956 to 1960, and at the Royal College of ArtRoyal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
from 1960 to 1963, where his fellow pupils included David Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
and Allen Jones
Allen Jones (sculptor)
Allen Jones RA is a British pop artist, best known for his sculptures. He lives and works in London.Jones was born in Southampton and from 1955 to 1961 studied at the Hornsey College of Art...
. He taught at Chelsea School of Art from 1963-71. In 1964, he exhibited at the New Generation show at London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, it was founded in 1901 as one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London, and it has a long...
, which resulted in him being associated with the pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
movement. However, this was a label which Caulfield was opposed to throughout his career, seeing himself rather as "a 'formal' artist", in his words.
From around the mid-1970s he began to incorporate more detailed, realistic elements into his work, After Lunch (1975) being one of the first examples. Still-life: Autumn Fashion (1978) contains a variety of different styles—some objects have heavy black outlines and flat colour, but a bowl of oyster
Oyster
The word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....
s is depicted more realistically, and other areas are executed with looser brushwork. Caulfield later returned to his earlier, more stripped-down style of painting.
Caulfield's paintings are figurative
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
, often portraying a few simple objects in an interior. Typically, he used flat areas of simple colour surrounded by black outlines. Some of his works are dominated by a single hue
Hue
Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...
.
In 1987, Caulfield was nominated for the Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
and in 1996 he was made a CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
.
The estate of Patrick Caulfield is represented by Alan Cristea Gallery
Alan Cristea Gallery
Alan Cristea Gallery is a commercial art gallery on London's Cork Street, founded in 1995 by Alan Cristea. It is the largest publisher and distributor of prints in Europe.-History:...
, London.
On 24 May 2004, a fire in a storage warehouse
Momart
Momart is a British company specialising in the storage, transportation, and installation of works of art. It has been owned by Falkland Islands Holdings since 5 March 2008....
destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection, including one or more by Caulfield. In September 2010 Caulfield and five other British artists including Howard Hodgkin
Howard Hodgkin
Sir Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin CH, CBE is a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction.-Early life:...
, John Walker
John Walker (painter)
John Walker is an English painter and printmaker.Walker studied in Birmingham. Some of his early work was inspired by abstract expressionism and post-painterly abstraction, and often combined apparently three-dimensional shapes with "flatter" elements...
, Ian Stephenson
Ian Stephenson
Ian Stephenson was an English abstract artist. Stephenson trained at King's College, Durham along with Noel Forster and had his first solo show in London at the New Vision Centre in 1958...
, John Hoyland
John Hoyland
John Hoyland RA was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters.-Life:...
and R.B. Kitaj were included in an exhibition entitled The Independent Eye: Contemporary British Art From the Collection of Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, at the Yale Center for British Art
Yale Center for British Art
The Yale Center for British Art is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut at Yale University which houses the most comprehensive collection of British Art outside the United Kingdom...
.
He died in London in 2005 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in north London, England. It is designated Grade I on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. It is divided into two parts, named the East and West cemetery....
.
Selected solo exhibitions
- 2009 Prints 1964 – 1999, Alan Cristea GalleryAlan Cristea GalleryAlan Cristea Gallery is a commercial art gallery on London's Cork Street, founded in 1995 by Alan Cristea. It is the largest publisher and distributor of prints in Europe.-History:...
, London, UK - 2006 Royal AcademyRoyal AcademyThe Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
, London, UK (Special Summer Exhibition Show) - 2006 Tate LiverpoolTate LiverpoolTate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corporation...
, Liverpool, UK - 1999 Hayward GalleryHayward GalleryThe Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre, part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings and also the Royal National Theatre and British Film Institute...
, London, UK - 1996 Claudine Papillon, Paris, France
- 1992-93 Retrospective, Serpentine GallerySerpentine GalleryThe Serpentine Gallery is an art gallery in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, central London. It focuses on modern and contemporary art. The exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract approximately 750,000 visitors a year...
, London, UK - 1989 Waddington Galleries, London
- 1985 Waddington Galleries, London, UK
- 1982 Retrospective, Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
- 1981 Patrick Caulfield: Paintings 1963-81, Walker Art GalleryWalker Art GalleryThe Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England, outside of London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, and is promoted as "the National Gallery of the North" because it is not a local or regional gallery but is part...
, Liverpool, UK (touring to Tate BritainTate GalleryThe Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
, London and Waddington Galleries, London, UK) - 1978 Tate GalleryTate BritainTate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
, London, UK - 1968 Robert Elkon Gallery, New York, UK
- 1965 Robert Fraser Gallery, London, UK
Selected public collections
UK- Arts Council of Great BritainArts Council of Great BritainThe Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...
, London - British CouncilBritish CouncilThe British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
, London & Manchester - Manchester City Art GalleryManchester Art GalleryManchester Art Gallery is a publicly-owned art gallery in Manchester, England. It was formerly known as Manchester City Art Gallery.The gallery was opened in 1824 and today occupies three buildings, the oldest of which - designed by Sir Charles Barry - is Grade I listed and was originally home to...
, Manchester - National Museum of WalesNational Museum CardiffNational Museum Cardiff is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales...
, Cardiff - Scottish National Gallery of Modern ArtScottish National Gallery of Modern ArtThe Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, holds the national collection of modern art. When opened in 1960, the collection was held in Inverleith House, at the Royal Botanic Gardens...
, Edinburgh - Tate GalleryTate-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
, London - Walker Art GalleryWalker Art GalleryThe Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England, outside of London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, and is promoted as "the National Gallery of the North" because it is not a local or regional gallery but is part...
, Liverpool - Whitworth Art GalleryWhitworth Art GalleryThe Whitworth Art Gallery is an art gallery in Manchester, England, containing about 55,000 items in its collection. The museum is located south of the Manchester University campus, in Whitworth Park....
, Manchester - Victoria and Albert MuseumVictoria and Albert MuseumThe Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
, London
USA
- Dallas Museum of ArtDallas Museum of ArtThe Dallas Museum of Art is a major art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, USA, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In 1984, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District, Dallas, Texas...
, Texas - Harry N Abrams Collection, New York
- Virginia Museum of Fine ArtsVirginia Museum of Fine ArtsThe Virginia Museum of Fine arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, in the United States, which opened in 1936.The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia, while private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the support of specific programs and all...
, Richmond
Australia
- National Gallery of AustraliaNational Gallery of AustraliaThe National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
, Canberra - Art Gallery of Western AustraliaArt Gallery of Western AustraliaThe Art Gallery of Western Australia is a public gallery that is part of the Perth Cultural Centre, in Perth, Western Australia. It is located near the Western Australian Museum and State Library of Western Australia...
, Perth
External links
- Caulfield at the Tate Gallery (includes images of many of his pieces)
- Patrick Caulfield works at Alan Cristea Gallery (ditto)
- Caulfield at the Waddington Gallery (ditto)
- Caulfield biography
- BBC News: Pop artist Patrick Caulfield dies
- Photograph of his gravestone