John Hoyland’s latest paintings are not being exhibited by any gallery, to the disappointment of the critic Bryan Robertson who believes them to be among his best. Here Robertson, the curator of two previous Hoyland shows, questions the artist about the new work and his development as an abstract painter …
Read more >Essay accompanying an exhibition of Hofmann’s paintings at Tate Gallery, curated by Hoyland. I first saw the paintings of Hans Hofmann in 1964 at the Kootz Gallery in New York. Clement Greenberg the American critic had kindly offered to show Paul Huxley and me around some of the New York …
Read more >When Leonardo da Vinci ran out of ideas he used to go out and look at ‘a wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some streaked stones.’ Staring at these skeins of abstract form, he found ‘landscapes, battles, clouds, uncommon attitudes, humorous faces, draperies. Out of this confused …
Read more >John Hoyland: Well I think it’s the only thing that does – in a way that music does. Colour strikes you – I noticed it particularly in a ballet I’ve just done, where the music comes on and the colour comes on and you can feel the audience’s response. Sally-Ann …
Read more >John Hoyland muses on the state of painting. Making art is an experience combining intellect, skill and intuition: it’s an experiment with what the artist imagines might be possible. The artist takes a chance and, if successful, anticipates what is possible experience. He does this by inventing new relationships which …
Read more >John Hoyland: Paintings 1967-79, Serpentine Gallery. The resistance to abstract art is amazing. After three-quarters of a century the standard view is still that it’s ‘just marks on a canvas’, decoration, not to be judged as serious art. Are Bach, Beethoven and Bartok merely decorative? Are Berlioz and Strauss the …
Read more >The John Hoyland retrospective which is currently on view at the Serpentine Gallery is full, as one might expect, of big, swagger, confident, abstract pictures, ablaze with colour. But there is more – much more – to be said about it than this. In fact, it is one of the …
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