Blue Leotard, 1961 by Thomas Sherlock Hodgson
Tom Hodgson
Blue Leotard, 1961
oil on linen
signed and dated 1961 lower right; titled and dated on a label on the reverse
72 x 59.25 in ( 182.9 x 150.5 cm )
Auction Estimate: $30,000.00 - $50,000.00
Price Realized $36,000.00
Sale date: November 27th 2024
Private Collecton, Toronto
Christopher Varley Art Dealer Inc., Toronto
Private Collection
"90th Annual Exhibition," Ontario Society of Artists, Art Gallery of Toronto, 31 March- 29 April 1962, no. 32
Like many other members of this loose collective, he was weaned on American Abstraction in the 1950s. He showed in the prestigious Carnegie International in Pittsburgh in 1955 and often praised the large scale of work there. In the context of New York City, he was particularly affected by the freely expressive painting of Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning. Hodgson has stated that he was most concerned with the physical process of painting; the advertised subject was secondary. Without its title and Hodgson’s predilection for painting the female nude, we might appreciate exactly those qualities of gestural expression and innovative colouration in this painting. Rivulets of pigment in various hues and viscosities flow downwards in the top left, centre, and lower right of the surface. In some very delicate passages, we can almost see through these skeins of paint. By contrast, Hodgson also gives us large opaque areas, as in the top right and the pink and white circular forms just below. The lower parts of the surface are given over to intense blues, some in diaphanous streaks, others suggesting solid patterns, such as the blue and green rectangular form at the bottom centre.
American Abstract Expressionism also went by the name “Action Painting,” coined in 1952 by New York writer Harold Rosenberg to emphasize the physical and emotional activity focused within the confines of the painterly support. While the artist’s physical actions while painting are emphasized in Hodgson’s work, so too are ‘actions’ on the body of the woman, presumably, wearing the blue leotard. Masked but not hidden by gesture, her form is visible: torso in the upper right with her lower body extending at a slight angle down the surface. Though less explicit, Hodgson’s painting is reminiscent of de Kooning’s famous "Women" paintings, prominent in the early 1950s (with some precedents in his earlier work). They share subject matter and a passionate working of the surface. De Kooning’s "Women" were controversial in New York at the time because he had reverted, influential commentators such as Clement Greenberg thought, to an earlier and eclipsed type of figurative painting. Others accused de Kooning of misogyny, a complaint that persists. In the work of both painters, do we see passion or violence, adoration or aggression? The comparison with de Kooning has the virtue of keeping such controversies alive, in art and beyond.
We extend our thanks to Mark A. Cheetham for the preceding essay. Mark is an independent writer, curator and professor of Art History at the University of Toronto.
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Thomas Sherlock Hodgson
(1924 - 2006) Painters Eleven
Born in Toronto, Ontario, he studied in Toronto at the Central Technical School, 1939-42. During the Second World War he served with the R.C.A.F. overseas and on his return to civilian life resumed his studies in art at the Ontario College of Art where he graduated in 1946. He joined the staff of an advertising agency as assistant to the art director until he entered the field of commercial art. In 1956 he became a teacher for the Artists Workshop, Toronto. But while he was developing in his artistic career he was excelling in athletics and was on the Canadian Olympic paddling team (1952 and 1956).
Back in Toronto he joined with a group of artists which included Jack Bush, Oscar Cahén, Alexandra Luke, J.W.G. MacDonald, Ray Mead, Kazuo Nakamura, William Ronald, Harold Town, Walter Yarwood and Hortense Gordon who were interested in non-objective painting. This group decided to call themselves Painters Eleven and they brought non-objective painting too Ontario in a big way. Hodgson was particularly influenced by one of them, Oscar Cahén, who, like Hodgson was a commercial artist in search of freedom and adventure in painting. Perhaps more than anything it was Cahén’s colour juxtapositions which greatly influenced Hodgson. Solo exhibitions by Hodgson were held in 1954, 1956 and 1957 (at the Gallery of Contemporary Art).
In 1958 Hugo McPherson in his article on Toronto’s visor and new life in painting, noted Hodgson among the good painters of that city. In 1961 Hodgson with 23 other artists, was featured in an issue of Canadian Art magazine and noted by Robert Fulford as follows, “A Hodgson canvas seems to storm over us, filling our eyes with its swarm of apparently unrelated images. It is not until long after our first glimpse of the work that its organization and structure become apparent… We begin to see that the strange colours are not only the result of a rather eccentric colour sense but also are the result of space and light.”
His later exhibitions revealed his interest in pop art and the female figure (exhibited at Albert White Galleries, Toronto, 1965) and he continued to achieve greater success in his oils which were shown at Needham, Harper and Streets of Canada, Toronto, 1967. His work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the University of British Columbia. He was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists (1954), Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (1954), Canadian Group of Painters (1956) and an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy (1962). He lived in Toronto.
Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume II”, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1979
