Antiques, textiles and objects often acquired at auction by the artist Howard Hodgkin, who died aged 84 in March, are to come under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London on October 24. More than 400 lots, including tiles, carpet fragments, antiques, drawings and paintings, will be sold. There are Ottoman, Indian and Islamic tiles, textiles and rugs and fragments of calligraphy, Italian pietra dura marble, prints, mezzotints and engravings.
The collection also includes artworks by his friends such as Patrick Caulfield, represented by a blue still life of a sweet bowl (£300,000-£500,000); a work by Bhupen Khakhar , The De-Luxe Tailors (£250,000-£350,000) and a Peter Blake postcard on a green felt background, which he gave Hodgkin in 1974 (£8,000-£12,000).
Hodgkin did not keep his own work as he said they got in the way of new work, though he did keep two paintings from his debut show at the ICA in 1962, Bedroom and Travelling. “I have absolutely no desire to collect my own work, but do have what with age seems an almost unquenchable thirst for acquiring other things to look at,” he said.
Highlights will be on view in Mumbai in September and in Dubai in October. Here is a small selection:
An interior shot of his home in Bloomsbury, London with items to be auctioned.
Patrick Caulfield – Sweet Bowl UPDATE: THIS MADE £524,750
Howard Hodgkin – Travelling UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Bhupen Khakhar – De-Luxe Tailors UPDATE: THIS MADE A RECORD £1.1 MILLION