Patrick Caulfield

Common characteristics of Caulfield’s paintings would be to use flat images of objects paired with angular geometric shapes. He would also use realistic images of, for example a still life or a landscape and combine them with plain areas of vivid colour in the negative space. Alternatively he also placed plain flat objects in combination with patterned loud patterned backgrounds. These all appear to depict to me, everyday objects in everyday settings but in an extraordinary way, like pictures within pictures and the longer I look at them the more complex many of them seem to appear.

The positive and negative spaces would be amplified, as in these two images:

Interior with a Picture 1985-6 Acrylic on canvas

Happy Hour

The unmodulated black line in much of his work, enhances the negative spaces incorporating elements of trompe l’oeil.

He was associated with British Pop Art but he rejected this label and his heroes were the cubists. I retrieved a couple of newspaper articles which I put away a few years ago, one of which is an obituary in The Gaurdian. These contain information I found quite illuminating such as: that he found much of his early inspiration in the poems of Jules Laforgue (some of the lines became titles of prints he made ie. I’ve only the friendship of hotel rooms) and other literary works, and later from locations such as the interiors of urban public houses, cafes, restaurants and hotel foyers. The connections between the two encapsulate to me, the biggest influences in his work.

Autumn Fashion -
 from The Gaurdian newspaper



My own interpretation of Caulfield's style
- oil pastel on pink paper