Patrick Caulfield, R.A.

Waddington Galleries, London, 1975
Mrs Clare Glazebrook
Saatchi Gallery, London, where acquired by the present owner on 26th of March 1999
.

Edinburgh, The Scottish Arts Council, Patrick Caulfield Paintings and Prints, cat. no.4;
London, Waddington Galleries, Patrick Caulfield, Recent Paintings, 25th November - 20th December 1975, un-numbered catalogue, illustrated;
Milan, Palazzo Reale, Arte Inglese Oggi 1960-76 (an exhibition organised by the British Council), 1976, cat. no.8;
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Patrick Caulfield, Paintings 1963-81, 22nd August - 4th October 1981, cat. no.35, illustrated, with Arts Council tour to Tate, London;
London, Hayward Gallery, Patrick Caulfield, 4th February - 11th April 1999, cat. no.22, illustrated, with Arts Council tour to Musée National d'Histoire et d'Art, Luxembourg, Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão, Lisbon and Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven;
London, Tate, Patrick Caulfield, 5th June - 1st September 2013, un-numbered exhibition.

Marco Livingstone, Patrick Caulfield Paintings, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2005, pp.88-9, illustrated;
Clarrie Wallis, Patrick Caulfield, Tate, London, 2013, p.67, illustrated fig.41.

The following condition report has been kindly prepared by Phil Young of PYPC Ltd Studio 3 Nutbrook Studios 33 Nutbrook Street London SE15 4JU The painting was examined in Sotheby's store, London. It is in a good and sound condition with the following minor points of condition noted. CONDITION: The stretcher is the original and is flat and in good condition. There are many exhibition labels intact on the stretcher as well as the artist's inscription. The joints are a little out of line at the edges when viewed from the front, leaving 'shoulders' in the corners, notably the lower left corner. The canvas has apparently been restretched at some point, it remains slack and in contact with the stretcher bars and with corner draw distortions and general undulations. No dents or other forced distortions are apparent. The edges are slightly misaligned after restretching so the white lower edge has come into view in the lower right and the paint has been pulled round the forward edge of the stretcher in the lower centre left, cracking and breaking the paint. All corners have minor abrasion to the paint with darker scuffs evident around edges and corners. It would appear there is a general surface dirt layer as evidenced by the marks and the scattered flyspots and handling marks. The lower right edge has a continuous abrasion for a third of the length of the side to the lower corner. There is a 2cm deep abrasion into the paint and canvas in the lower left corner which looks to have been retouched. The area around the upper left of the background door has been apparently reworked by the artist. It currently has pale surface marks and deposits unrelated to this but caused by a pale drip line having been wiped partly back, leaving the deposits as well as some blanching and other marking. FUTURE TREATMENT: All the above points can be dealt with though minimal treatment: 1. Surface clean, remove all marks and surface deposits. 2. Restretch to the correct alignment and tension, making additions to the joints so no stretcher steps are seen. 3. Consolidation and restoration of edge abrasions. Unframed. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Painted in 1975, Forecourt is one of the largest and in graphic terms the most elaborate of the imposing architectural interiors conjured from a precise network of black outlines on monochromatic grounds that Caulfield had initiated six years earlier with paintings such as Inside a Swiss Chalet 1969 (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid) and Inside a Weekend Cabin 1969 (fig.2, Manchester City Galleries). The tension between restraint and ornamental profusion is here carried to an extreme: on the one hand the reduction of his pictorial language to a terse black line of uniform width laid over a ground of a single unmodulated colour, on the other a perspectival rendering of a classical building dazzling in its complexity, clarity of execution and mastery of perspective.

As in other paintings executed around that time, such as Paradise Bar 1974 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond) and After Lunch 1975 (fig. 3, Tate, London), the formal austerity of the greater part of the painting’s surface is jarringly and gloriously broken by the sudden intrusion of a specified passage in a contrasting style or (as here) erupting into a burst of other colours. The spring daffodils picked out in the foreground, and the indication in the distance of a light-filled interior or atrium, introduce a blast of life into a setting that otherwise speaks of ceremonial grandeur and decorum. With characteristically gentle humour, even the pair of atlantes – the sculpted male torsos that frame the arch and appear to shoulder the weight of the pediment – appear overwhelmed with emotion at the sight of nature springing back into life. One might say that the flowers interject a soft, organic, feminine note into the otherwise brooding masculinity of the picture. The dusky greens, whites and pale lilac of this section describing a central void, so effective in opening up the illusion of pictorial depth, mark a release into the joy of pure fantasy. The strategy has a similar purpose and effect to the swift passage from dour black-and-white into sumptuous colour in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy leaves behind the mundane reality of life in Kansas for the wonders of the world of the imagination.

Forecourt, like Caulfield’s other paintings of architectural subjects at this time, was meticulously planned and diligently executed. An intricate pencil drawing was painstakingly enlarged and then transferred to the canvas (fig 1. , Study for `Forecourt', 1975, Pauline Caulfield). In this particular case, the drawing was almost entirely invented, with only the atlantes based on a photograph of an actual building of 1667, the Pavillon de Vendôme in Aix-en-Provence. As with so many of his eureka moments, the idea of including the flowers came to him in an idle interlude, while seated in a bar opposite the Serpentine and noticing the flower boxes.

The towering dimensions of this canvas do more than convey the vastness of the architecture it describes. By looming over the spectator, the painting replicates the sensation one might have when entering into such a space, designed to place the visitor in a state of awe. Caulfield always used scale with rigorous logic, habitually depicting things actual size: small paintings therefore were reserved for still-life subjects, the much larger canvases for architectural scenes. Standing before the painting, the viewer feels enveloped and immersed in it, subconsciously reinforcing the sensations aroused by the imagery through sheer physical impact. As one’s eyes scan the elevation, the perspective subtly changes, so that the succession of pedimented windows near the top edge of the canvas are powerfully experienced as seen from below. Caulfield plays on the oppressiveness of this massive architecture bearing down on you, then generously lightens both his palette and the mood to invite us to pierce that intimidating façade and to move towards the promise of a separate realm of light and open space.

Marco Livingstone, October 2013, author of Patrick Caulfield Paintings, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2005.