Howard Hodgkin

When Hodgkin made his series of Venetian Views in 1995, it seemed possible that he would never again return to printmaking and it seemed impossible that he could ever envisage editioned images on an even grander scale.

These four images are unprecedented in his work. They are larger than most of his paintings (each measures 2 x 2.6 metres) and they convey a vitality, almost a wildness, only hinted at previously in some of his unique works. Never had the underlying structure of his work been so concealed. These etchings are indeed prints, inconceivable without the processes and intrinsic qualities of the medium, but they are also hybrids, in which printing and painting are fused and inter-dependant.

These four etchings are accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.