In Full Colour 1960–1970

Howard Hodgkin, Dinner at West Hill  1964–6

This painting recalls a dinner party in March 1964 hosted by the painter Bernard Cohen and his wife Jeannie. Hodgkin later recalled, 'I had to contend with a nervous and glittering evening in a green and white room full of small B. Cohens on the wall'. Some of the marks in this picture are based on the forms in Cohen's paintings. Hodgkin explained the white line represented the edge of the table, but also emphasised the flatness of the painting’s surface.

Gallery label, April 2019

Sandra Blow, Green and White  1969

Sandra Blow made her impactful abstract compositions using both traditional and unusual materials. For Green and White she incorporated blended ash made from burning nuts in her studio stove. While the painting was still unfinished, someone entered Blow’s studio and slashed the canvas with a knife. Determined not to ‘lose the painting’, she sewed the edges together and stuck a strip of canvas on the back and front, then painted over it. ‘Miraculously... it was a perfect conclusion to the whole painting,’ she said.

Gallery label, September 2023

Sir Anthony Caro, Lock  1962

Anthony Caro developed a new sculptural language which emphasised the physical relationship between sculpture and viewer. The abstract painting and sculpture he saw during a 1959 visit to the USA had a strong influence. When he returned, Caro began welding and bolting industrial steel sheets and bars. He also started applying bold, flat colour finishes to his sculptures. Teaching at St Martin’s School of Art in London, Caro encouraged his students ‘to push sculpture where it never has been.’

Gallery label, September 2023

Sir Frank Bowling OBE RA, Mirror  1964–6

Frank Bowling explained that Mirror was ‘about making a painting’. He combined different approaches to figurative and abstract work, from op art to colour field painting. At the centre is the spiral staircase at the painting studios of the Royal College of Art, where he had studied. Bowling appears swinging from the top of the staircase and again at the bottom, painted in a very different way. In between stands his then-wife, writer Paddy Kitchen. In 1966, feeling increasingly pigeon-holed as a Black artist, Bowling left London for New York.

Gallery label, September 2023

Derek Boshier, The Identi-Kit Man  1962

The man in this painting seems to be part toothpaste, part jigsaw piece. The figure merges into mass consumer product, reflecting the commodification Derek Boshier thought was transforming society. He was also interested in the effects of Americanisation on British life. The work’s title references police identikits. Invented in the USA, these sets of pre-drawn facial features helped investigators create images of suspects. Boshier said the figure in the painting ‘represents me (us), the spectator, participant, player, or cog in the wheel – the amorphous “us”... being manipulated.’

Gallery label, September 2023

Richard Smith, Gift Wrap  1963

The size and the landscape orientation of Gift Wrap suggest a billboard. At the time Richard Smith was fascinated with product packaging and advertising. The inspiration for the work was a popular brand of cigarettes from the USA. Above all, Smith was interested in creating illusions in painting, giving the work a three-dimensional, sculptural quality. The composition combines abstract and pop art elements. Smith made it during a period of time when he was living between the USA and the UK.

Gallery label, September 2023

Joe Tilson, Transparency I: Yuri Gagarin 12 April 1961  1968

Gallery label, August 2024

Anwar Jalal Shemza, Composition in Red and Green, Squares and Circles  1963

Anwar Jalal Shemza began his artistic career in Pakistan and moved to the UK to study. Feeling displaced, he stopped making figurative paintings. Instead, he began studying Islamic art from different periods, in search of what he called his ‘own identity’. His new compositions fused calligraphy and aspects of Mughal architecture with European abstract art. He commented: ‘I am much more aware of my own art heritage now than I ever was in Pakistan. You only become aware of the things you lose.’

Gallery label, September 2023

Bridget Riley, Hesitate  1964

Riley’s paintings of the 1960s were the best-known works of what became called op art. This referred to the optical effects that dominate the viewer’s experience of the painting. Sometimes such works have an almost physical effect, destabilising the viewer. In this case, however, the gradual changes in the shape of the grey forms seem to suggest two abutting cylinders receding into the picture frame. The fame of such works not only epitomised the way in which art reached a wider audience in the 1960s,but also influenced fashion and a wider visual culture.

Gallery label, September 2016

Pauline Boty, The Only Blonde in the World  1963

Pauline Boty painted the film star Marilyn Monroe from a photograph. The actor occupies a thin strip of this canvas, squeezed between green sections. Monroe had died a year earlier. Boty spoke about her ‘nostalgia for the things that are now... it’s almost like painting mythology, only a present-day mythology.’ She identified with the challenges Monroe had faced. Boty wanted to be taken seriously intellectually and be free to embody her sexuality at a time when the two were seen as mutually exclusive.

Gallery label, September 2023

Peter Blake, Self-Portrait with Badges  1961

In traditional portraits, props and clothing often communicate the interests and status of the sitter. Peter Blake plays with this convention in this self-portrait. His jeans, denim jacket (rare in Britain at the time), badges and magazine featuring Elvis Presley all demonstrate his fascination with North American culture. Blake’s work often involves collage and imagery borrowed from popular culture. At this time this connected him with younger painters at the Royal College of Art, where he had studied. This included Derek Boshier, Pauline Boty, Frank Bowling and David Hockney, all featured in this gallery.

Gallery label, September 2023

David Hockney, A Bigger Splash  1967

David Hockney moved to Los Angeles from London in 1964. This is one of several paintings he made of swimming pools there. It would become a defining image of sun-lit, clean-contoured southern California. Hockney was interested in using paint to capture fleeting moments. He explained: ‘When you photograph a splash, you’re freezing a moment and it becomes something else. I realise that a splash could never be seen this way in real life, it happens too quickly. And I was amused by this, so I painted it in a very, very slow way.’

Gallery label, September 2023