Name: Two dead leaves
Brand: Eliot Hodgkin
Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Two dead leaves

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About the Item

Eliot Hodgkin (1905-1987) Two dead leaves signed and dated ‘Eliot Hodgkin 20 VII 69’ (lower left) and further signed, numbered and inscribed ‘3 Two Dead Leaves by Eliot Hodgkin 9 Durham Pl SW3’ (on the reverse) tempera on board 6 ⅝ x 12 in. (16.8 x 30.5 cm.) frame 11 ⅞ x 17 ¼ in. (29.9 x 43.8 cm.) Together with correspondence between the artist and buyer from the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1971, no. 937. Provenance: Private Collection. ‘(If I am not being conceited) I do consider [Two dead leaves] one of my best’. - Eliot Hodgkin, in correspondence to the buyer, 1971 The present work was executed by an artist at the height of his powers, and encapsulates why Eliot Hodgkin has become one of the most sought after and popular British still-life painters of the 20th Century. Although collectors of his work requested to buy the painting when they saw it in his studio, he chose to exhibit it at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and was delighted as to how it ‘so quickly found a home’. With their birth in the spring, a cacophony of greens in the summer, followed by a symphony of golds, orange, reds and browns in the autumn, it is not often that one examines and contemplates the transient beauty of individual leaves (in this case sycamore), let alone dead ones. Textured by waves of undulating veins that once distributed water and energy to the body of a tree, Hodgkin presents the viewer with perfection in imperfection. Life-sized and beautifully composed with a subtle symmetry, the stalks mirror each other, while the curled edges, together with two holes, balance the structure. The almost olive-coloured background and shadows - subtly executed with meticulous gradations of stippling - strengthen the silhouette of the leaves. The varying degrees of golden browns indicate that life has migrated, and the cycle that began with the shoots in spring, has ended. As well as pointing out beauty in the everyday, Two dead leaves encourages the viewer to contemplate the passing of time, and that most ancient of metaphors for the stages of life (birth, childhood, adulthood, and old age): the cycle of the four seasons. Executed with the intensity of a work by Salvadore Dali (who also gave everyday objects a new interpretation), and ‘adding a hallucinatory excitement that extend[s] the image far beyond mere realism’ Two dead leaves holds one’s eye with a subtle charisma that encourages the viewer to see, in the words of Hodgkin himself, ‘the beauty of natural objects which are normally thought uninteresting or even unattractive’. Indeed, Hodgkin observed wonders in such everyday ‘things as Brussels sprouts, turnips, onions, pebbles and flints, bulbs, dead leaves’, and said that ‘people sometimes tell me that they had never really ‘seen’ something before I painted it, and I should like to believe this…’. He further elaborated, saying ‘what I want to paint are the things that have been seen so often that people no longer notice them, or if they are noticed are no longer thought beautiful. I try to show these things exactly as they are, some of their mystery and poetry and as though they are seen for the first time”. It’s likely that Hodgkin would agree that one can travel the world searching for a miracle, while they are actually omnipresent, everyday, in the most common guise - such as a drop of morning dew, a spider’s web, or two dead leaves. Living in Chelsea, it is highly plausible (given the sycamore tree’s abundance in London) that Hodgkin found the leaves nearby, perhaps noticing their subtle glory on an autumnal walk. Hodgkin’s finest works are in tempera, and he was recorded as saying that the medium ‘enables me most nearly to achieve the effects I am aiming at... I try to show things exactly as they are, yet with some of their mystery and poetry… And it seems to me that, in trying to depict "a World in a grain of sand", perhaps the best medium is tempera, because it combines clarity and definition with a certain feeling of remoteness’. Hodgkin’s tempera technique was based on a recipe given to him by his friend and teacher Maxwell Ashby Armfield (1881-1972), who had in turn received his tempera instruction from Joseph Southall, R.W.S., N.E.A.C., R.B.S.A. (1861-1944). A cousin of Howard Hodgkin, and related to Roger Fry, Hodgkin was educated at Harrow, where he was given the nickname ‘Hodgepot’ by Cecil Beaton. He then trained at the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools, and after taught for several years at the Westminster School of Art, where he was in residence with Mark Gertler. A man of great modesty (he lived in a house surrounded by works by Rubens, Ingres, Lawrence, Fragonard, Degas, Sutherland and Corot, yet was too humble to hang his own art among such company), he turned down the opportunity to become a Royal Academician in 1959.’.

Creator:
Eliot Hodgkin (1905 - 1987, British)
Creation Year:
1969
Dimensions:
Height: 6 in (15.24 cm)Width: 12 in (30.48 cm)
Medium:
Egg Tempera
Movement & Style:
Naturalistic
Period:
1960-1969
Condition:
The picture is presented in it's original frame, and has not been taken out since it was purchased at the Royal Academy.
Gallery Location:
London, GB
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU80612354133

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