Patrick Caulfield | |
|---|---|
 After Lunch, 1975,Tate Gallery | |
| Born | Patrick Joseph Caulfield 29 January 1936 |
| Died | 29 September 2005 (aged 69) London, England |
| Education | Chelsea School of Art, 1956–1959Royal College of Art, 1960–1963 |
| Known for | Painting,Printmaking |
| Notable work | After Lunch, 1975 Still Life with Dagger, 1963 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon vues de derrière, 1999 |
| Awards | Prix des Jeunes Artistes, 1965 Royal Academician, 1993Jerwood Painting Prize, 1995London Institute Honorary Fellowship, 1996 Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1996 |
Patrick Joseph Caulfield,CBE, RA (29 January 1936 – 29 September 2005), was an English painter andprintmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements ofphotorealism within a pared-down scene. Examples of his work arePottery andStill Life Ingredients.
Patrick Joseph Caulfield was born on the 29th of January, 1936 at 17 All Saints Road,Acton, west London.[1] During thesecond world war Caulfield's family returned to Bolton in 1945, where his parents were born, to work at theDe Havilland factory. Leaving Acton Secondary Modern at the age of 15, Caulfield secured a position as a filing clerk atCrosse & Blackwell and later transferred to the design studio, working on food display and carrying out menial tasks. At 17, he joined theRoyal Air Force atRAF Northwood, pre-empting requirement fornational service. Inspired by the 1952 filmMoulin Rouge about the artistHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec, he spent his free time attending evening classes at Harrow School of Art (now part of theUniversity of Westminster).[2][3]
Patrick Caulfield studied atChelsea School of Art from 1956 to 1960,[4] and during this time he won two prizes which funded a trip he made toGreece andCrete upon graduation. The visit to the island proved important, with Caulfield finding inspiration in theMinoan frescoes and the bright, hard colours on Crete.[5] One of his greatest friends was the abstract painterJohn Hoyland, whom he first met at the Young Contemporaries exhibition in 1959.[6] Progressing to theRoyal College of Art from 1960 to 1963,[7] his contemporaries includedDavid Hockney andAllen Jones.[8] He taught at Chelsea School of Art from 1963 to 1971.[7] In 1964, he exhibited at theNew Generation show at London'sWhitechapel Gallery, which resulted in him being associated with thepop art movement. This was a label Caulfield was opposed to throughout his career, seeing himself rather as "a 'formal' artist".[2] He first exhibited withLeslie Waddington in 1969 and was represented by him for over thirty years, until Caulfield's death in 2005.[9]
From the mid-1970s he incorporated more detailed, realistic elements into his work;After Lunch (1975) is an early example.Still-life: Autumn Fashion (1978) contains a variety of styles – some objects have heavy black outlines and flat colour, but a bowl ofoysters is depicted more realistically and other areas are executed with looser brushwork. Caulfield later returned to his earlier, more stripped-down style of painting.
Caulfield's paintings arefigurative, often portraying a few simple objects in an interior. Typically, he used flat areas of simple colour surrounded by black outlines.[10] Some of his works are dominated by a singlehue.
In 1987, Caulfield was nominated for theTurner Prize for his showThe Artist's Eye at theNational Gallery in London.[11] In 1996 he was made aCBE.
On 24 May 2004, afire in a storage warehouse destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection, including three by Caulfield. In September 2010 Caulfield and five other British artists,Howard Hodgkin,John Walker,Ian Stephenson, John Hoyland, andR.B. Kitaj were included in an exhibition entitledThe Independent Eye: Contemporary British Art From the Collection of Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, at theYale Center for British Art.[12][13]
He died in London in 2005 and is buried inHighgate Cemetery. His work is held in the private collections ofCharles Saatchi andDavid Bowie[14] and the road on which he was born was renamed Caulfield Road after his death when the area was redeveloped.
Later in his career, Caulfield worked on several commissions in addition to his painting and printmaking. In 1990 he designed a stained glass window forThe Ivy restaurant, it is visible from within the restaurant and on its exterior. In 1992 he designed a 12-metre carpet for theBritish Council's Manchester headquarters and in 1984 and 1995 set designs forParty Game andRhapsody (respectively) at theRoyal Opera House.[16] Caulfield painted the doors of the Great West Organ atPortsmouth Cathedral in 2001.
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