John Hoyland (b.1934 Sheffield, UK – d.2011 London, UK) was one of the most inventive and dynamic abstract painters of the post-war period. Over the span of more than a half-century his art and attitudes constantly evolved. A distinctive artistic personality emerged, concerned with colour, painterly drama, with both excess and control, with grandeur and above all, with the vehement communication of feeling.
“Paintings are a seduction, one develops a relationship with these inanimate objects which becomes a bond like a living person, a mirror, a realm of elusive power,” he once mused. “Art plays a game of structural truthfulness, it becomes alive. It contains and understands ecstasy through color as light. The artist must try to make every song sing and push beyond the fixing of appearances.” Born on October 12, 1934 in Sheffield, United Kingdom, he went on to study at the Sheffield College of Art and later the Royal Academy in London where he was remonstrated by a professor for painting abstractions. In 1964, Hoyland travelled to New York where he met Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko, both of whom had a lasting impact on his work. After returning to England, Hoyland’s reputation grew, culminating in the artist’s first solo exhibition in 1967 at Whitechapel Art Gallery. Over the following decades, his work continued striving to provide a sense of wonder in the viewer.
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