At the weekend, I was wandering around the 1960′s portrait room at The National Portrait Gallery, London, comparing the different painting techniques of rendering the human face. Along the line, I came upon this portrait, it certainly stuck out and I wondered: “who painted this and why is it here?”. The personality or emotion conveyed is central, it takes up the ratio amount normally assigned to visual representation (where the sitters personality is rendered as secondary). I like it because of the colours Hodgkins used and the combined 2-D, 3-D effect. Hodgkins (b. 1932-) is classed as an abstract artist. Apparently, his paintings convey his memories of encounters with friends. Emotive use of colour–it works!
