To Look at Simple Things

                                    “I like to show the beauty of things that no one looks at twice.”                                  — Eliot Hodgkin In a letter written to Brinsley Ford in 1975

In so far as I have any conscious purpose, it is to show the beauty of natural objects which are normally thought uninteresting or even unattractive: such things as Brussels sprouts, turnips, onions, pebbles and flints, bulbs, dead leaves, bleached vertebrae, an old boot cast up by the tide. People sometimes tell me that they had never really ‘seen’ something before I painted it, and I should like to believe this… For myself, if I must put it into words, I try to look at quite simple things as though I were seeing them for the first time and as though no one had ever painted them before.

-Eliot Hodgkin, in response to an enquiry about his interest in still lifes from the editors of The Studio 1957.

I love Eliot Hodgkin’s still lifes and I love his habit of using names and numbers in the titles. Here are some of them – from one to fourteen

Still Lifes by the Numbers 1-14
One
Cut lemon on marble
Golden Delicious in purple paper
Golden Delicious in tissue paper with red cheek
Peeled lemon
Peeled lemon, quartered
Small bun from Beaton’s
A solitary boot

Two

Baskets of currants
Bunches of black grapes
Chestnut leaves
Cut lemons hanging
Croissants

Dead leaves
Dublin Bay prawns
Fantasy tulips
Figs on pink paper
Flints
Garlic bulbs
Gray dead leaves
Japonica Fruit
Kohlrabis
Large leaves from Angkor
Large walnuts
Lily bulbs
Modena rolls

Pale pink poppies
Pears on a paper bag
Pear-shaped melons
Peppers from Lecce
Pink roses
Pink turnips, sprouting
Plums
Pods of Afzelia Africana
Punnets of strawberries
Spotted poplar leaves
Standing pears
Tree peony pods
Toilet rolls
White peonies
Wine bottles

Three

Carnations
Dead Rubber Plant Leaves
Gladioli Corms
Limes on Tissue Paper
Mangosteens
Mauve Tulips
Ming Vases
Ming Vases by Lamplight
Passion Fruit
Peaches on a Pewter Plate
Pears in a Paper Bag
Pieces of Asparagus
Punnets of Mixed Currants
Quinces on White Marble
Tangerines
White Feathers and Three White Hyacinths

Four

Asparagus
Black and white feathers
Bowls full
Broken shells
Dead leaves
Figs
Flamingo feathers
Flints
Little bundles
Oyster shells
Peaches in white paper
Peaches on black marble
Purple and cream turnips
Red tulip petals
Stones
Variegated ivy leaves in a black truffle jar
White feathers

Five
Brioches
Brussels Sprouts on Pink Ground
Champagne corks

Gooseberries
Limes
Pheasant and Three Plovers’ Eggs
Red Apples
Peaches on a pewter plate
Small turnips
Truffle Jars and Rose
White Hyacinths on Pink Ground
White violets

Six
Cape Gooseberries
Chillies
Gladioli bulbs
Gourds
Peaches on a pewter plate
Pear leaves
Quinces
Sprouting bulbs

Seven
Brussel sprouts
Hyacinths (one blue, one pink, five white
Little baskets
Peaches, knife and fork
Pears in a bowl
Quail’s eggs

Eight

Feathers
Gourds
Hyacinth heads
Ivory hammers

Nine
Spring turnips
Strawberries
Peaches in a paper bag

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Of nothing

Fourteen

The End

Of course – among all those “simple” things are many that would have been totally unfamiliar to the average post-war Brit. They speak of a level of class privilege, foreign travel, and dietary sophistication way out of the range of experience for most people. Brussels sprouts and turnips – yes. But you didn’t usually find  aubergines, chilies, and passion fruit down at the local Co-op let alone quail’s eggs, truffles, and mangosteens (!) Croissants and brioche? Five champagne corks?

But let’s not quibble. The paintings are wonderfully meticulous and evocative.  

“Why tempera?… Because tempera 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 as though seen for the first time. 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 in the R.W.S. catalogue, 1946:

Hodgkin also painted landscapes and in 1945 received a commission from the Imperial War Museum. He had been working in the Home Intelligence Division of the Ministry of Information and proposed making some drawings of plants growing in London’s bomb sites, As a result, he was offered a 35 guinea commission. He delivered two pictures in July 1945 and one was accepted,

The work that first brought Hodgkin to my attention was the illustration he created for the Women’s Land Army

Turns out that he also wrote a novel – She Closed the Door (1931). 

It apparently tells the story of “Victor Marsh, a handsome and urban young man who sets out to attract Alice Andrews, a delightful and rural young lady.”

I would like to read it but alas! it is no longer available.  But we can see the dust jacket he created.