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All artists' studios are the same. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:21 | |
All artists' studios are different. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
This one belongs to Sir Howard Hodgkin. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:28 | |
The first time I came here, I thought the objects lining | 0:00:31 | 0:00:34 | |
the room were canvases, their painted faces turned to the wall. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:40 | |
That was my first mistake. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
Hodgkin paints only on wood and these are screens designed | 0:00:42 | 0:00:47 | |
to conceal works in progress, which may take years to complete. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:52 | |
I have an appointment with the painter, | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
who, by all accounts, is not an easy interview. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:05 | |
His friend Bruce Chatwin described him as longing for both fame and for oblivion. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:12 | |
He doesn't like talking about his paintings because, he says, "Words are the English disease. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:21 | |
"They come between the painting and the viewer." | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
He once said that painting is like putting a message in a bottle | 0:01:27 | 0:01:31 | |
and flinging it into the sea. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
He works in this great bowl of glaring white light, but no-one has seen him paint for over 20 years. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:41 | |
Now, at the age of 73, he has a major retrospective, | 0:01:43 | 0:01:48 | |
first in Dublin and from tomorrow at Tate Britain, | 0:01:48 | 0:01:52 | |
and he's the subject of this book, which seems to mark him out | 0:01:52 | 0:01:56 | |
as a favourite of poets, novelists and critics, many of whom have known him for years. | 0:01:56 | 0:02:02 | |
And here he comes. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:07 | |
Welcome! | 0:02:17 | 0:02:19 | |
'He seems rather benign, | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
'but the terms of the interview require some negotiation.' | 0:02:23 | 0:02:27 | |
'Certain personal areas are off limits, | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
'he's not keen to talk about his world class collection of Indian art. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:34 | |
'And we absolutely cannot film him at work. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:39 | |
'But there is something he will do. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
'He will leave the white room. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:43 | |
'He will come to India.' | 0:02:43 | 0:02:46 | |
This is Hodgkin's 28th visit to India. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:19 | |
I wonder what keeps bringing him back here. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
'We're following his itinerary, coming to places he has chosen and invariably seen before. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:31 | |
'This is Fatehpur Sikri, a ghost city, | 0:03:33 | 0:03:36 | |
'built by the Mogul emperor Akbar, but abandoned after only 14 years. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:42 | |
'One suspects he has an enormous enthusiasm for Mogul architecture, | 0:03:45 | 0:03:50 | |
'but Howard's not going to talk about it.' | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
He sits and he looks. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:58 | |
He's doing something else and you know it has to do with how a painting comes about. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:03 | |
He doesn't sketch, he doesn't take photographs. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:14 | |
He doesn't do anything obvious to commit a scene to memory. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
And yet somehow you know he's taking it all in, | 0:04:17 | 0:04:21 | |
and you wonder, which of all these sights and sounds will come back one day? | 0:04:21 | 0:04:26 | |
Not like a scene from a movie, | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
but as patches of colour painted on wood. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
I used to worry that I couldn't articulate exactly what | 0:04:39 | 0:04:44 | |
even a picture like this that I own by him | 0:04:44 | 0:04:48 | |
does to me internally when I look at it. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
But now I think that that's only a sort of social handicap | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
rather than a sort of failing in regard to me and the painting. | 0:04:55 | 0:05:00 | |
I don't see why I should necessarily be able to put it into words | 0:05:00 | 0:05:05 | |
or whether it would be improved by my putting it into words. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
I was looking at it just before you came and one of the things I love | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
is sort of leaching out from behind all this exuberance are these little areas of sort of greeny-grey brown. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:21 | |
I just found my thoughts going along the line of | 0:05:21 | 0:05:26 | |
this is a sort of blazing picture about joy | 0:05:26 | 0:05:30 | |
and this is behind every joy, there is some melancholy. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:34 | |
Might be complete bollocks, and actually, if I remember | 0:05:34 | 0:05:38 | |
that next time I look at it, it won't help me understand it. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
Night drive to Agra, 125 miles south of Delhi. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:52 | |
It's my first time in India, and feels exhilarating, overwhelming, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:57 | |
almost dangerous. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:00 | |
CAR HORNS BLARE | 0:06:00 | 0:06:02 | |
It's an assault on the senses, India, isn't it, | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
in an extraordinary way? | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
I think one of the things about India is that everything is so extreme | 0:06:25 | 0:06:31 | |
and also so naked. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
But the thing about being an artist is that you are always a stranger. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:38 | |
Because one's always a stranger, | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
it's nice to find a place where it's natural to be one. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:48 | |
It's not natural to be a stranger in England. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:53 | |
So many of the pictures refer to "abroad", as it used to be called. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:10 | |
Seasons in their foreign plumage. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
Fruit, palm trees, a searingly coloured sky. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:18 | |
It may be that this painter needs to travel. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:22 | |
You need the separation from home and then you need the return home to consider what you have stored up. | 0:07:22 | 0:07:28 | |
What is worth painting is what remains in and is transformed by memory. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:33 | |
Late afternoon at Banganga Tank. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
Howard loves this place and is in a talkative mood. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:43 | |
It's become very glamorous since I first came here. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
This what you call glamorous, is it? | 0:07:46 | 0:07:48 | |
Oh, yes. Look at these beautiful clean birds. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:52 | |
There's a little bit of junk there, but mostly it's very downmarket. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:59 | |
Look at those colours in a row. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:02 | |
Lilac, the pink, the orange and yellow in between - amazing! | 0:08:05 | 0:08:11 | |
What is it about the British that we're so coy about colour? | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
I don't really know, but I think that one of the reasons | 0:08:16 | 0:08:20 | |
we're coy about the colour of sunsets | 0:08:20 | 0:08:25 | |
is because sunsets are the colour of tumescence, | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
and that's thought to be... or something! | 0:08:29 | 0:08:32 | |
It's also not thought to be serious colour. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:39 | |
That's right. There is that thing about your pictures. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:46 | |
People think they're very beautiful | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
and therefore they can't be serious. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:50 | |
Oh yes, absolutely. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:52 | |
That's why I try to persuade people to never call them beautiful, | 0:08:55 | 0:08:59 | |
but I didn't get anywhere. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:00 | |
Look at that. That is pretty amazing. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
It's very bright. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:15 | |
It is. I like that. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:18 | |
It's a bit more than the pictures can stand, I think. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
We saw this green in India, but did we quite see this green? | 0:09:23 | 0:09:27 | |
Yes, absolutely. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:29 | |
This is the perfect Indian vernacular green, not Raj green. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:37 | |
Is it a British...? No, I think it's a vernacular green. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
Who knows where colours come from in India? | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
The Irish Museum of Modern Art has been painted, blazoned, | 0:09:50 | 0:09:56 | |
maybe appropriately in green, white and gold | 0:09:56 | 0:10:01 | |
for the Howard Hodgkin exhibition. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:04 | |
When I walked through the rooms and stopped with the paintings, | 0:10:04 | 0:10:10 | |
with green prevailing, | 0:10:10 | 0:10:15 | |
I couldn't help thinking of a poem by Philip Larkin called The Trees. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:20 | |
"Trees are coming into leaf, Like something almost being said, | 0:10:21 | 0:10:26 | |
"The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:33 | |
"Is it that they are born again and we grow old? | 0:10:33 | 0:10:37 | |
"No, they die too. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:39 | |
"Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:45 | |
"Yet still the unresting castles thresh, | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
"In full-grown thickness every May. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
" "Last year is dead", they seem to say, | 0:10:52 | 0:10:54 | |
"Begin afresh, afresh, afresh." | 0:10:54 | 0:10:58 | |
As a matter of fact, that "begin afresh" | 0:11:02 | 0:11:07 | |
is an answer that Howard Hodgkin could give to a question he's often asked. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:11 | |
He's often asked, "What does this painting mean?" | 0:11:11 | 0:11:13 | |
Which he avoids with various wiles and wisdoms, | 0:11:13 | 0:11:19 | |
but he could say, truthfully and adequately, | 0:11:19 | 0:11:23 | |
"This painting means that I had to begin afresh." | 0:11:23 | 0:11:27 | |
The Dublin show, like the one opening at Tate Britain, | 0:11:46 | 0:11:48 | |
is chronological, spanning nearly 50 years. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:51 | |
It's a chance to see, to walk through, a lifetime of painting. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:56 | |
"I've been looking at Howard's work for three decades now | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
"and it's one of the delights of my life. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:03 | |
"When his paintings, like a gang of international acquaintances, | 0:12:03 | 0:12:07 | |
"reassemble for a different show | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
"in a different city, in a different country, | 0:12:09 | 0:12:12 | |
"when I stand in front of a picture again after a period of a few years, | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
"I often find myself murmuring internally, 'Yes, of course,' or 'Good,' | 0:12:15 | 0:12:20 | |
"or, 'That's right,' or sometimes, 'Now I am beginning to see.' " | 0:12:20 | 0:12:25 | |
'The pictures are packed with cunning design | 0:12:33 | 0:12:36 | |
'and thick, luscious colour. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
'Hodgkin's green is as excruciating as Tiepolo's blue. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:44 | |
'Having renounced painting's other primary resource - drawing - | 0:12:44 | 0:12:48 | |
'Hodgkin has fielded the most inventive, sensuously-affecting | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
'colour repertory of any contemporary painter.' | 0:12:52 | 0:12:57 | |
Here you have this artist who's grown up in England, | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
a culture which is thought not to be interested in colour, | 0:13:00 | 0:13:05 | |
and here he is. Really, he's of totally southern temperament | 0:13:05 | 0:13:10 | |
in this grey atmosphere of London trying to burst out. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:15 | |
You see it throughout his painting. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:17 | |
I mean, this really strong emotion, really strong colour, | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
which is completely uncharacteristic of what we think of as British painting. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:25 | |
When he gets to India, it really explodes. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:27 | |
The trouble is, once you start becoming aware of colours, you start seeing them everywhere... | 0:13:32 | 0:13:37 | |
or think you do. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:39 | |
When travelling with Howard, you soon learn not to take colour for granted. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:43 | |
Howard, look. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:47 | |
Yeah. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
Dublin green or not? | 0:13:50 | 0:13:51 | |
Not quite. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:53 | |
Not quite blue enough, almost. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
We know objectively that painters see colours better than we do, | 0:14:03 | 0:14:07 | |
see them more exactly, more precisely, but it's very good to have it demonstrated. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:11 | |
"Taranto, April 1989. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
"Howard spots a black hand-towel | 0:14:17 | 0:14:19 | |
"in the window of an old-fashioned haberdashery. Four of us go in. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:23 | |
"The assistant produces a black hand-towel. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
" 'No,' says Howard, 'It's not as black as the one in the window.' | 0:14:27 | 0:14:30 | |
"The assistant pulls out another, which is similarly rejected, | 0:14:30 | 0:14:34 | |
"and then another and then another. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:36 | |
"Howard has now rejected seven or eight, for God's sake, | 0:14:41 | 0:14:44 | |
"and is asking the fellow to get the original towel out of the window. | 0:14:44 | 0:14:47 | |
"The assistant contorts himself to do so. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
"When he lays the item down on the counter, | 0:14:50 | 0:14:52 | |
"I see instantly what I would not have seen in anyone else's presence - | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
"the towel is indeed very, very slightly blacker than all the others. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
"The sale is concluded." | 0:15:01 | 0:15:03 | |
Your awareness and love of colour, | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
it's also connected with your sense of escape, | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
going to India and getting away. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:13 | |
Is there something liberating about colour for you personally? | 0:15:13 | 0:15:17 | |
I don't think, particularly. I think if the picture needs some colour, I put it there. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:23 | |
But I don't really think in terms of liberation. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
I find painting too difficult to feel liberated by it. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:32 | |
Colour has no separate identity for me at all. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:37 | |
As that great colourist David Hockney once said, "It doesn't matter what colour you use." | 0:15:37 | 0:15:43 | |
For him, the word colourist is an offensive term. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:53 | |
He's not a colourist. "I'm not a colourist!" | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
So he's a painter and he happens to work with colour, | 0:15:56 | 0:16:01 | |
but the paintings are not a way | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
of making a wall pretty or a space pretty. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:09 | |
So he has to work out carefully what it is he's doing, | 0:16:09 | 0:16:15 | |
but it's so hard to describe because he's working very tactfully | 0:16:15 | 0:16:21 | |
and sensitively off a nervous system to tell something. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
It's absolutely crucial to him, but it's not something simple. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
But being called a colourist is a nightmare. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:32 | |
It's like for a novelist being called a storyteller. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:36 | |
"Oh, he's a great storyteller." | 0:16:36 | 0:16:38 | |
When you've spent your lifetime shaping things, | 0:16:38 | 0:16:42 | |
forcing sentences into certain positions, making paragraphs sharp | 0:16:42 | 0:16:46 | |
and, "Oh, he's a great storyteller." | 0:16:46 | 0:16:48 | |
It's that sort of thing that really irritates people. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
Some people would say, "He's an abstract painter." | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
A lot of people would say that who don't necessarily know a great deal about the history of art. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
You're very adamant that you're a representational painter. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:06 | |
I'm a painter. You're a painter. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
You're being a bit gnomic about that because you have said | 0:17:09 | 0:17:12 | |
that you paint things that you see and experience. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:17 | |
Yes, I'm only being a bit gnomic to avoid repeating | 0:17:17 | 0:17:22 | |
that very glib remark I once made that I'm a representational painter of emotions, | 0:17:22 | 0:17:27 | |
which was a silly thing to say, | 0:17:27 | 0:17:31 | |
but I'm not an abstract painter. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
His work hovers in this area. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
It always starts from a given moment or a given memory | 0:17:39 | 0:17:43 | |
and a very specific experience. | 0:17:43 | 0:17:48 | |
I think if you start to try and pin down, analyse and define in words, | 0:17:48 | 0:17:55 | |
it can often make it more difficult to realise the experience in another form. | 0:17:55 | 0:18:00 | |
I think also that he's very happy to give people clues but not explanations | 0:18:02 | 0:18:08 | |
because he doesn't want the works to be read literally. | 0:18:08 | 0:18:12 | |
And the first clue Howard offers us is the painting's title. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:18 | |
This is called... | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
It's called Rain. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:27 | |
How important is the title, as a matter of interest? | 0:18:27 | 0:18:31 | |
Extremely important because it's the subject of the picture. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
This is a painting called Sad Flowers. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
Sad Flowers. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:40 | |
Yes, which has been much repainted. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:45 | |
When you say much repainted, do you mean you worked on it a lot? | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
I worked on it a lot and then I thought it wasn't sad enough so I made it even more sad. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:53 | |
What is it called? | 0:18:58 | 0:19:00 | |
That's one of Howard's wittier titles. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:04 | |
It's such an exuberant and blazing picture. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:08 | |
He calls it Keep it Quiet. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:11 | |
Its presence is very demanding. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
It's opposite the front door | 0:19:14 | 0:19:16 | |
and I sometimes deliberately don't switch the light on that's on it | 0:19:16 | 0:19:21 | |
so that I sort of skulk past it. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:23 | |
I think, "I'll get back to you tomorrow." | 0:19:23 | 0:19:27 | |
This is a picture called Snapshot, Howard, | 0:19:27 | 0:19:31 | |
and it took you nine years to paint. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:34 | |
It did indeed. It shows how difficult it is to paint a snapshot. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:38 | |
So, when you began, there was some image that you caught sight of. | 0:19:38 | 0:19:46 | |
Is that why you called it Snapshot? I'll go that far, yes. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
It takes you a long time, paradoxically, to capture that moment and that glimpse. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:58 | |
I don't think it's quite as paradoxical as all that because... | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
..a glimpse is much harder to pin down. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:08 | |
Because you're going back deep into your... You're trying to remember... | 0:20:08 | 0:20:13 | |
You have to remember and paint from memory and believe in it as well. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:20 | |
Belief is the real trouble. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
When we think of memory in art, you think of Wordsworth | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
and emotion recollected in tranquillity. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:29 | |
It always seems to me that Howard's paintings | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
are emotion recollected with the full power and complication | 0:20:32 | 0:20:36 | |
of the emotion that was felt in the first place. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
There's nothing calm and reflective about these paintings. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:44 | |
They seem to me furiously emotional. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:47 | |
'We rose early one morning to go to Lodi Gardens, | 0:20:51 | 0:20:55 | |
'a favourite haunt of lovers and joggers. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
'We were there to visit the domed tombs | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
'and I hoped Howard might open up | 0:21:02 | 0:21:04 | |
'and explain why it was India that took such a grip on his imagination.' | 0:21:04 | 0:21:10 | |
There's something about the everyday in India, just coming across these things. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
Yes. Look, you can see the woman taking her dog for a walk. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
Yes, we talked about glimpses. | 0:21:18 | 0:21:22 | |
One of my favourite things. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:25 | |
And the elephant-coloured palm trunks, | 0:21:25 | 0:21:29 | |
I think that's absolutely amazing. | 0:21:29 | 0:21:32 | |
Was this Mogul architecture what first captivated you? | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
No, not really, it was just a very romantic idea of India. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:48 | |
It was completely exotic. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:51 | |
It couldn't be further away than living in Shepherds Bush, where I was then. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:57 | |
And everybody spoke English. | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
They don't any more. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:02 | |
What, in Shepherds Bush? | 0:22:02 | 0:22:04 | |
No, here. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:07 | |
When did you first see this? | 0:22:07 | 0:22:09 | |
I'm sure I saw it on my first visit to India. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:15 | |
In '64. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:17 | |
I thought it was an interesting way of exploring how the paintings begin | 0:22:19 | 0:22:23 | |
by asking him to go through the past chronologically for me - What year? What happened next? | 0:22:23 | 0:22:29 | |
This irritated him very deeply. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:31 | |
But every so often, he would say something, | 0:22:33 | 0:22:37 | |
he would say, "Remember in that street, there was another boy..." and he would start. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:42 | |
I'd realise he was almost back somewhere | 0:22:42 | 0:22:45 | |
in the part of himself that makes images. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:48 | |
And what did you sense about his childhood? | 0:22:51 | 0:22:55 | |
I felt that he certainly had a sense of being an outsider, | 0:22:55 | 0:23:02 | |
which can happen to the most protected, loved children | 0:23:02 | 0:23:05 | |
in the most bourgeois families, the sudden sense that you're not... | 0:23:05 | 0:23:10 | |
that you weren't born or that you weren't fully made, | 0:23:10 | 0:23:14 | |
and that you would have to make yourself up as you went along within a family | 0:23:14 | 0:23:18 | |
no matter how wonderful the family was. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:21 | |
Oh, I certainly felt that about him, you feel that about him I think the minute you see him - | 0:23:21 | 0:23:26 | |
that he is somebody who has been lost. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
'Howard Hodgkin doesn't fit in to any group or school of British art. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
'In the early '60s, he painted a series of portraits | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
'of fellow artists from the contemporary scene. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
'But as he told me, he was never one of the gang.' | 0:23:44 | 0:23:49 | |
So, the beginning of the story is in white. In white, yes. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:54 | |
Any reason for that? Yes. You begin pure and then get corrupted. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:58 | |
That is not for publication. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
This picture tells you about the story, | 0:24:03 | 0:24:06 | |
about the art world you inhabited and your interpretation of it. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:11 | |
And that awful quotation that critic got. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:15 | |
"I painted pictures of people because I was scared of them." | 0:24:15 | 0:24:19 | |
That was actually quoted in relation to that painting. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:22 | |
He's got a point, hasn't he? | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
It's quite a scary picture. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
I suppose so! | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
They were very close friends of mine at the time, | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
but perhaps I was also a little scared of Robin. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:35 | |
Your subject for a lot of that time | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
was actually this art world and the people who inhabited it | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
and all going off in their different directions. You were sort of... | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
It was probably the nearest I could get to being in it. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:51 | |
But you were sort of marooned a bit. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
I say marooned, but you were still finding your own way. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
Yes, I was. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:00 | |
Throughout the 1960s, | 0:25:04 | 0:25:06 | |
Howard escaped the confines of the English art world | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
through his passion for collecting Indian paintings and drawings. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:13 | |
As Bruce Chatwin observed, | 0:25:27 | 0:25:29 | |
part of this enthusiasm was the thrill of the chase. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:34 | |
'Howard's hunting instincts were thoroughly aroused. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:37 | |
'He bought, sold and traded. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:40 | |
'He perfected the tactics of the bazaar | 0:25:40 | 0:25:42 | |
'and for over 10 years, he channelled about half his creative energies into his collection.' | 0:25:42 | 0:25:48 | |
This is purely an unfinished painting. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
But I like it very much because of that. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
'Living with objects is... | 0:26:09 | 0:26:13 | |
'only just less difficult than living with other people.' | 0:26:13 | 0:26:17 | |
'Any retrospective exhibition of Howard's own paintings would, in my opinion, | 0:26:17 | 0:26:22 | |
'be incomplete without the Indian collection hanging beside them. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
'Though having once made a purchase, he has an equally strong impulse | 0:26:26 | 0:26:30 | |
'to hide it, to lend it, or at least to get it out of his sight.' | 0:26:30 | 0:26:34 | |
And that's just what he has done. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:39 | |
When I wanted to see his collection, I had to go to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, | 0:26:39 | 0:26:44 | |
where, for the moment, it was not on display, but somewhere deep in storage. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:50 | |
The Ashmolean's had a long relationship with Howard Hodgkin | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
ever since he was a painting fellow here in the mid-'70s. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:06 | |
And we were delighted a few years ago when he said, "Would you like to take the collection on loan?" | 0:27:06 | 0:27:12 | |
So here it is. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
He's been collecting ever since he was a schoolboy. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
It's been a vital part of his life. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:21 | |
I think Howard has a huge affinity for elephants and for elephants in painting. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:26 | |
Probably about a fifth of his collection shows elephants. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:30 | |
They vary from simple drawings, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
which, as it were, capture the whole life and soul of an elephant, particularly an Indian elephant, | 0:27:33 | 0:27:39 | |
to elaborate paintings like this one. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
Hunters have been sent out by the royal court to trap a wild elephant. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:52 | |
The bull elephant has been lured away from his herd. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:56 | |
His herd are all frolicking happily in the lake beneath. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
It's just a great tour de force of elephants playing, elephants charging, | 0:27:59 | 0:28:05 | |
elephants climbing rocks... | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
everything's going on. | 0:28:07 | 0:28:09 | |
Elephants tripping the light fantastic, almost. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
Indian painters tended to copy the same subjects over and over again. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:20 | |
They produced good paintings, but they didn't produce great paintings, | 0:28:20 | 0:28:24 | |
which had that original spark of inspiration. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
That's what you see in so many of the paintings in the Hodgkin collection - | 0:28:27 | 0:28:31 | |
they're the real thing, they have that original spark. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:34 | |
Howard also collects people. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:51 | |
His passion for Indian art led to friendships with scholars | 0:28:51 | 0:28:55 | |
like Simon Digby, who we met up with to be our guide at Humayan's tomb. | 0:28:55 | 0:29:00 | |
You think of paintings of the mid-17th...you get domes, | 0:29:00 | 0:29:06 | |
which probably looked quite like these... | 0:29:06 | 0:29:09 | |
domes of a century earlier. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:13 | |
I was looking at some pictures | 0:29:13 | 0:29:16 | |
in this wonderful installation in the V, | 0:29:16 | 0:29:19 | |
and there was Simon wearing sandals and carrying two shopping bags, | 0:29:19 | 0:29:25 | |
which in those days made him look slightly like a male bag lady. | 0:29:25 | 0:29:32 | |
I thought it was him - I knew him by sight...I thought. | 0:29:34 | 0:29:39 | |
He came up in his best dithering tones. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:42 | |
He said, | 0:29:42 | 0:29:44 | |
"Mr Hodgkin, isn't it?" | 0:29:44 | 0:29:46 | |
I said, "Yes." | 0:29:46 | 0:29:48 | |
We went on from there. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:50 | |
It was a time when so few people among the British | 0:29:50 | 0:29:57 | |
were interested in Indian art in any way, | 0:29:57 | 0:30:01 | |
so almost anyone of our generation who were interested | 0:30:01 | 0:30:06 | |
were bound to run across one another sooner or later. | 0:30:06 | 0:30:09 | |
But I was so impressed, being much shier than that, that you came up to a perfect stranger. | 0:30:09 | 0:30:15 | |
I thought that was admirable. | 0:30:15 | 0:30:18 | |
I've always been badly behaved! | 0:30:18 | 0:30:20 | |
Hardly. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:23 | |
I note the Star of David in the roundels. | 0:30:23 | 0:30:26 | |
That motif becomes popular... | 0:30:26 | 0:30:29 | |
again in the mid-16th century. It's found also on... | 0:30:29 | 0:30:33 | |
He would talk for half the night when I first knew him. | 0:30:33 | 0:30:37 | |
And in his drinking days, it was not half. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:40 | |
'He's immensely knowledgeable about various things, particularly about Indian decorative art.' | 0:30:43 | 0:30:49 | |
When you go, and I just watched you there, | 0:31:02 | 0:31:07 | |
a lot of the time you would just sit and...absorb things. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:12 | |
Is that the way you are when you're away? | 0:31:12 | 0:31:17 | |
It's the way I am everywhere now, I think, very much. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:21 | |
I try and work all the time. | 0:31:26 | 0:31:28 | |
So that's what you're doing when you're sitting, you're working? | 0:31:31 | 0:31:34 | |
Yeah. | 0:31:34 | 0:31:36 | |
"When travelling with Howard, he and I have a running joke. | 0:31:44 | 0:31:47 | |
"Occasionally, sitting in a bar, relaxing in a restaurant, staring at a sunset, | 0:31:47 | 0:31:52 | |
"gazing at a piazza, he will say, with a delivery poised between | 0:31:52 | 0:31:56 | |
"self-satire and true contentment, 'I feel a picture coming on.' | 0:31:56 | 0:32:01 | |
"I ritually reply, 'I feel a novel coming on.' | 0:32:01 | 0:32:04 | |
"He means it more than I do - well, I never mean it. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:08 | |
"I often wonder what is happening inside his head at these moments. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:12 | |
"Howard looks intently all the time, but when he says he feels a picture | 0:32:12 | 0:32:17 | |
"coming on, he seems to be looking differently. | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
"The moment is digestive, ruminant, | 0:32:20 | 0:32:24 | |
"and I know he will remember everything. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:26 | |
"That's to say, everything he needs and will need." | 0:32:26 | 0:32:30 | |
It's like a stage set. | 0:32:56 | 0:32:59 | |
She's like... | 0:32:59 | 0:33:01 | |
She's act one. Yes, exactly. Something's going to happen. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:06 | |
See how the shape of the... | 0:33:06 | 0:33:10 | |
bottom of columns echoes the shape of her broom. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
A word would be enough to start a painting. | 0:33:17 | 0:33:21 | |
A word, | 0:33:21 | 0:33:23 | |
an event, a place... Yes, a place. | 0:33:23 | 0:33:25 | |
A thing that happened. Yes. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:29 | |
A memory in the distant past. Yes. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
And it isn't just a question of capturing the moment. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:39 | |
It's almost the opposite of that. | 0:33:39 | 0:33:41 | |
It's trying to find in the experience, whatever it was, the way it was remembered. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:48 | |
To try and make that something that would matter. | 0:33:48 | 0:33:52 | |
But if you're feeling miserable, it's a perfect place to come, it only lasts five seconds. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:06 | |
I did once come here. What, when you were feeling miserable? | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
Utterly miserable. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:12 | |
'India became an emotional lifeline. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:21 | |
'Each winter, he travelled all over the subcontinent, | 0:34:21 | 0:34:25 | |
'sopping up impressions - | 0:34:25 | 0:34:26 | |
'the view from a railway carriage, the colour of cow dust in the evening, | 0:34:26 | 0:34:30 | |
'or the sight of an orange sari against a concrete balustrade - | 0:34:30 | 0:34:34 | |
'and storing them for pictures he would paint at home. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
'And then the story might, artistically, have ended, were it not for a chance encounter. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:43 | |
'The details of the encounter I leave to the imagination. | 0:34:43 | 0:34:47 | |
'The results were that Howard's painting took a sharp and unexpected swerve.' | 0:34:47 | 0:34:53 | |
Somehow that Chatwin...because the melodrama of that description... | 0:34:54 | 0:34:59 | |
Yeah, the melodrama of course has affected... | 0:34:59 | 0:35:03 | |
Everyone after that said, "Ah, he came out, and his work went...!" | 0:35:03 | 0:35:09 | |
Nothing so simple | 0:35:10 | 0:35:12 | |
or direct. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
I don't think it's anything like as simple as suggesting that, | 0:35:15 | 0:35:20 | |
in the mid-'70s, he came out, and suddenly his painting... | 0:35:20 | 0:35:25 | |
became of a different order. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:28 | |
I think the subjects may have changed somewhat. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:31 | |
And he was probably prepared | 0:35:31 | 0:35:34 | |
to paint... | 0:35:34 | 0:35:36 | |
subjects in which he had been, not just an observer, | 0:35:36 | 0:35:40 | |
but subjects that were more directly about his own experience | 0:35:40 | 0:35:45 | |
and own relationships. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:46 | |
That probably did change. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
'We'd come here to the Red Fort at Agra to see Howard's favourite object in all of India | 0:36:01 | 0:36:07 | |
'and at the same time to get a view of everybody else's favourite, the Taj Mahal, | 0:36:07 | 0:36:12 | |
'which, rather pointedly, was not on Howard's itinerary. | 0:36:12 | 0:36:16 | |
'Nor was it actually visible.' | 0:36:16 | 0:36:18 | |
So, on a different day, when the sun wasn't here, we'd see the Taj Mahal from here? Yes, you would. | 0:36:25 | 0:36:31 | |
'But not today.' | 0:36:31 | 0:36:33 | |
We can probably buy a postcard or something of it. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:38 | |
'Thanks a bunch, Howard.' | 0:36:38 | 0:36:39 | |
I want to see my favourite object. | 0:36:43 | 0:36:46 | |
'And there it was, the emperor's throne.' | 0:36:46 | 0:36:51 | |
No, I'll sit down here and you sit up there. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
All right, go on, then. That would be appropriate. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
Of course(!) | 0:36:57 | 0:36:58 | |
No, no, you have to sit cross-legged in the middle. | 0:36:58 | 0:37:02 | |
'Howard had a plan, and I was beginning to think I was being set up.' | 0:37:02 | 0:37:07 | |
I'm only doing this for you, Howard. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:09 | |
In the middle. In the middle? | 0:37:09 | 0:37:11 | |
Like the Emperor Akbar. | 0:37:11 | 0:37:14 | |
Where he sat. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:17 | |
Yes. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:19 | |
I'm trying to remember what the proper posture... | 0:37:27 | 0:37:31 | |
When you want something, my part would be... | 0:37:32 | 0:37:35 | |
So what can I do for you? | 0:37:35 | 0:37:37 | |
I think you could persuade people to look at my pictures. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:43 | |
That's what I'm trying to do! | 0:37:43 | 0:37:45 | |
Well, you see, I believe you. | 0:37:47 | 0:37:49 | |
You love Mogul miniatures, you collect them. | 0:37:55 | 0:37:59 | |
Why...? I only like big ones, | 0:37:59 | 0:38:02 | |
I have to interpolate at that point. | 0:38:02 | 0:38:05 | |
You only like big miniatures? Yes. | 0:38:05 | 0:38:08 | |
You're a perverse fellow. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:10 | |
Yes, I know! | 0:38:10 | 0:38:12 | |
It gives them a certain quality when they're that big and everyone thinks they're that big. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:17 | |
But this picture is of a very large subject. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:21 | |
It's called, "Come Back, Dull Care". | 0:38:23 | 0:38:27 | |
"Come Back, Dull Care". Yes. | 0:38:30 | 0:38:32 | |
Most people would say, | 0:38:32 | 0:38:34 | |
"Be Gone, Dull Care". Exactly. I thought it would be very good to have it back. | 0:38:34 | 0:38:39 | |
It's a feel-good picture. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:44 | |
Doesn't it look like one? | 0:38:44 | 0:38:46 | |
Why do people say about your pictures that they're erotic? | 0:38:48 | 0:38:52 | |
It's a word you hear a lot about your pictures. Well, I think they hope they are. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:56 | |
And do YOU hope they are? | 0:38:56 | 0:38:58 | |
Yes, if I've made them erotic, then I do hope they are. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
I saw this man sunbathing in Central Park wearing red Bermudas. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:06 | |
I can see that sort of New York... | 0:39:09 | 0:39:12 | |
Looking up, I can see. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:14 | |
Is it a pleasurable experience, painting? | 0:39:14 | 0:39:16 | |
No, it's agony. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:19 | |
But I don't like saying that out loud, cos it sounds like self-pity. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:24 | |
But it's not pleasurable...to me. | 0:39:24 | 0:39:27 | |
So why do you do it? | 0:39:27 | 0:39:28 | |
I don't know. | 0:39:28 | 0:39:30 | |
I suppose it's a compulsion of some kind. | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
And when I've finished a painting which I am pleased with, which does happen, | 0:39:34 | 0:39:40 | |
then I always think I've got to paint another one. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
Do you surprise yourself when you make a picture? Have to. Have to? | 0:39:44 | 0:39:48 | |
I mean, when one talks about composition, | 0:39:57 | 0:40:00 | |
it that something, | 0:40:00 | 0:40:02 | |
which emerges more than it's... | 0:40:02 | 0:40:06 | |
conceived or ordained, the composition? | 0:40:06 | 0:40:10 | |
I'm not going to answer that - it's a trade secret. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:13 | |
He's very reluctant to talk about that whole process. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:23 | |
There's not a lot of point in probing. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:25 | |
You probably have, but he'll give away a bit, but he won't... And I understand that. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:30 | |
Have you ever seen him paint? | 0:40:30 | 0:40:32 | |
No. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:34 | |
I want to go inside, don't you? | 0:40:37 | 0:40:40 | |
Isn't that beautiful? Look at the light coming in. Beautiful. | 0:40:41 | 0:40:46 | |
Crawford Market, Mumbai, a flourishing relic of the Raj, | 0:40:46 | 0:40:51 | |
'designed by Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard's father.' | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
There's the fountain. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
Right. I shouldn't be holding your arm on camera. | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
'There was something Howard was eager to show me.' | 0:41:09 | 0:41:12 | |
The fountain really is amazing. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:17 | |
They've painted over all the original design in technicolour. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:21 | |
It's been absorbed by India. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:25 | |
So it was originally built by... | 0:41:25 | 0:41:28 | |
Designed by Lockwood Kipling. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:30 | |
What period? It looks like 1930s or '20s. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:37 | |
No, no, no, that's because of all the paint. It's much earlier, you mean. Yes. | 0:41:37 | 0:41:41 | |
Not of the same period as the building? | 0:41:41 | 0:41:43 | |
Yes! My God! | 0:41:43 | 0:41:45 | |
You see how they've... | 0:41:45 | 0:41:47 | |
Indianised it? | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
They certainly have. Wonderfully! | 0:41:49 | 0:41:51 | |
You see, it was originally a kind of mock Byzantine. See the little columns. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:56 | |
Very beautiful, because water would have come out of all these... | 0:41:56 | 0:42:03 | |
..heads. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:06 | |
It's been customised. And I like the one that... | 0:42:07 | 0:42:10 | |
the broken one that they've painted a face on. | 0:42:10 | 0:42:14 | |
It's in Venetian Byzantine style, partly. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:20 | |
Actually, what they call Indo-Saracenic. Indo-Saracenic? | 0:42:20 | 0:42:26 | |
That's a very highfalutin name. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:30 | |
Well, it's a very highfalutin style! | 0:42:30 | 0:42:33 | |
It's thanks to Ruskin in the end, | 0:42:33 | 0:42:35 | |
all this. | 0:42:35 | 0:42:37 | |
Is there quite a lot of Ruskin's influence in Bombay in the architecture? | 0:42:37 | 0:42:42 | |
I would think. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:45 | |
But, of course, the influence eventually came from the government art schools. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:50 | |
But the biggest architectural treat in our entire India trip was yet to come | 0:43:01 | 0:43:06 | |
and it was Howard's work on the grandest scale - | 0:43:06 | 0:43:10 | |
an astonishing giant mural | 0:43:10 | 0:43:12 | |
cut from white marble and black stone | 0:43:12 | 0:43:15 | |
for the British Council Library in Delhi. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:19 | |
His collaborator was the Indian architect, Charles Correa. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:24 | |
The British... | 0:43:24 | 0:43:25 | |
layer is just one of many, many layers that make India. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:31 | |
Any Indian is just a pin you push through these layers | 0:43:31 | 0:43:34 | |
and it hits them at different speeds and with different consequences. | 0:43:34 | 0:43:38 | |
So that's what that building is about. | 0:43:38 | 0:43:40 | |
You're trying to express that, and that's how we got that structure. | 0:43:40 | 0:43:44 | |
We needed something in front, which would convey all this, | 0:43:44 | 0:43:47 | |
and that's where Howard came up trumps, because he came up with this idea of the shade of a giant tree. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:53 | |
India is a place where all these things could happen, a really pluralistic world. | 0:43:53 | 0:43:59 | |
What was the thought in your mind when you came up with this? | 0:44:01 | 0:44:05 | |
I wanted to do something that's totally... | 0:44:05 | 0:44:09 | |
non-sectarian in every way | 0:44:09 | 0:44:12 | |
and... | 0:44:12 | 0:44:14 | |
I thought of people sitting under banyan trees reading, which is a very... | 0:44:14 | 0:44:20 | |
familiar subject in early Indian painting. | 0:44:20 | 0:44:24 | |
I thought it was appropriate for a library. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:27 | |
So this is all done with stone? Yes. Amazing. | 0:44:29 | 0:44:34 | |
White marble and black stone. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:37 | |
I was so amazed that... He has always dealt in colour. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:42 | |
When you come to India, you'd think you'd want to deal in colour and, of course, he does when he comes... | 0:44:42 | 0:44:48 | |
But he had the guts to say, "No, shadows are black. The hotter the sun, the blacker the shadow." | 0:44:48 | 0:44:53 | |
A lot of Mogul buildings are decorated in black and white marble | 0:44:53 | 0:44:57 | |
and natural stone like this is. | 0:44:57 | 0:44:59 | |
The person cutting it will... | 0:45:02 | 0:45:05 | |
say, "OK, like that." | 0:45:05 | 0:45:07 | |
Whereas, in fact, you need to do... | 0:45:07 | 0:45:10 | |
It was all cut out with scissors, originally, | 0:45:13 | 0:45:16 | |
from paper. | 0:45:16 | 0:45:18 | |
Is that how you did it in order to get it right? Yes. | 0:45:18 | 0:45:21 | |
It had to be so meticulous in every... | 0:45:21 | 0:45:24 | |
There's a very good example up there where you see just a little white dot. | 0:45:24 | 0:45:28 | |
It's just about over your head. There, the peak? The peak, yes. | 0:45:30 | 0:45:36 | |
I'd call it a mountain peak. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:38 | |
I think you're right. It's more a peak than a dot. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:42 | |
I'm sorry. | 0:45:42 | 0:45:44 | |
Some murals are a little extra on the building. This is the building, isn't it? | 0:45:44 | 0:45:48 | |
Yes, and that was something that we were both determined it should be. | 0:45:48 | 0:45:52 | |
The wonderful thing is that black and white holds all the colour at bay, | 0:45:52 | 0:45:57 | |
and there's so much colour pressing to get in. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:00 | |
Even the stone around. It's beautifully done. | 0:46:00 | 0:46:02 | |
Whether these... | 0:46:02 | 0:46:04 | |
forms are the limbs of a tree or... | 0:46:04 | 0:46:09 | |
a banyan or whatever, you have a sense of an organic form, that's the key thing. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:14 | |
There's tension that exists between this organic form | 0:46:14 | 0:46:18 | |
contained within a rather severe building... | 0:46:18 | 0:46:24 | |
austere building in a certain sense, except it has this wonderful pink sandstone. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:30 | |
It's a wonderful balance. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:31 | |
You have this sense of these forms pushing their way out. | 0:46:31 | 0:46:35 | |
In that sense, it's very equivalent to many of his paintings. | 0:46:35 | 0:46:39 | |
'Our last day in India and one last sight we really mustn't miss.' | 0:46:52 | 0:46:58 | |
Tumescent? Yes. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:06 | |
Isn't that fabulous? | 0:47:08 | 0:47:10 | |
Somebody was thinking of me when they arranged that. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:18 | |
Where is it going, this sunset, this Bombay sunset? | 0:47:21 | 0:47:26 | |
Into another painting. You going into another painting, do you think? | 0:47:26 | 0:47:30 | |
Yes. | 0:47:30 | 0:47:32 | |
I've painted one Bombay sunset already. | 0:47:32 | 0:47:34 | |
That was from an early... | 0:47:48 | 0:47:51 | |
trip to Bombay? | 0:47:51 | 0:47:53 | |
A long time ago. A long time ago. Yes. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:56 | |
A sunset is such a... | 0:47:59 | 0:48:01 | |
remarkable happening. | 0:48:01 | 0:48:04 | |
And it touches people so deeply | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
that... | 0:48:09 | 0:48:10 | |
somehow that makes one want to... makes ME want to paint it more and more. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:15 | |
And I've painted several | 0:48:17 | 0:48:20 | |
and I'm painting more at the moment. | 0:48:20 | 0:48:22 | |
Nothing more about my future plans. | 0:48:25 | 0:48:27 | |
I asked him, "Is there anybody working at the very top level in England now | 0:48:27 | 0:48:32 | |
"whose work really depends on yours?" | 0:48:32 | 0:48:36 | |
Is there a young painter who's taken everything from you and is now working with it? He said, "Nobody." | 0:48:36 | 0:48:42 | |
I said, "Have you had any influence?" "None." | 0:48:42 | 0:48:46 | |
And there was, in saying it, half sadness, but much more than half sadness. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:51 | |
Let's say a quarter sadness. Three-quarters absolute pride, the doggedness of that, | 0:48:51 | 0:48:56 | |
that I alone now, | 0:48:56 | 0:48:59 | |
in this room in London, I'm making images that really matter in this way to people. | 0:48:59 | 0:49:05 | |
Lovely feeling! | 0:49:05 | 0:49:06 | |
Mmm. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:16 | |
What's that called, Howard? "Performance Art." | 0:49:21 | 0:49:25 | |
Do you remember performance art? | 0:49:25 | 0:49:27 | |
I do, but this is performance art from when? | 0:49:27 | 0:49:31 | |
When you remember it from. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:34 | |
Really? From a long time ago. Mmm. | 0:49:34 | 0:49:37 | |
And that memory has remained with you, and so you made that picture? | 0:49:37 | 0:49:43 | |
How could I forget? | 0:49:43 | 0:49:44 | |
"Living Room, | 0:49:49 | 0:49:51 | |
"1999-2006." | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
And why did it wait... | 0:49:58 | 0:50:00 | |
seven years to be completed? | 0:50:00 | 0:50:02 | |
Perhaps fortunately it can't talk. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:06 | |
'It was our last day of filming | 0:50:13 | 0:50:15 | |
'and just when it seemed that Howard had, typically, | 0:50:15 | 0:50:18 | |
'contrived to have the last word, something extraordinary happened. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:24 | |
'He did exactly what he said he never would. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
'He picked up a paintbrush and prepared to paint.' | 0:50:27 | 0:50:31 | |
I wonder what will become of that? | 0:51:01 | 0:51:03 | |
Some pictures... | 0:51:03 | 0:51:05 | |
may go behind that screen there, | 0:51:05 | 0:51:10 | |
and you may not to back to them for a long period? | 0:51:10 | 0:51:15 | |
No, but I do. | 0:51:15 | 0:51:17 | |
You do? Yeah. | 0:51:17 | 0:51:19 | |
I can't, off-hand, think of a picture that I've completely abandoned. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:24 | |
But probably when I die, there'll be several waiting... | 0:51:26 | 0:51:30 | |
for the coup de grace | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
and not getting it. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:36 | |
It's beginning to go. | 0:51:43 | 0:51:45 | |
It's going beautifully, though. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:47 | |
It couldn't be more elegant, the way it slides away. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:51 | |
All good things come to an end. | 0:51:54 | 0:51:56 | |
Yes! | 0:51:56 | 0:51:58 | |
And also start afresh. | 0:52:01 | 0:52:03 | |
'Is it that they are born again and we grow old? | 0:52:07 | 0:52:11 | |
'No, they die too. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:13 | |
'Their yearly trick of looking new is written down in rings of grain. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:19 | |
'Last year is dead, they seem to say. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:22 | |
'Begin afresh, | 0:52:22 | 0:52:23 | |
'afresh, afresh.' | 0:52:23 | 0:52:26 |