Howard Hodgkin Portraits The Insider’s Insider Review By Edward Lucie-Smith

Edward Lucie-Smith | Artlyst | 23rd March 2017

Howard Hodgkin died two weeks before the show he so wanted – an exhibition of his portraits. Most reviews are gushing, but less so the above piece. Hodgkin’s abstract style leads to this charge – “Without the catalogue note, the painting can’t exist on its own”. But another critic sidesteps this criticism: “[W]ith artists you judge by results: the [paintings] we are left with. Often Hodgkin’s were sumptuously beautiful.”