Her handkerchief swept me along the Rhine

Patrick Caulfield (1936 - 2005)

Screenprint

1973

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  • About the work

    This set of screenprints by Patrick Caulfield is a response to the work of the French poet Jules Laforgue (1860–1887), the title of each print is taken from a line of Laforgue’s poetry. Born in Uruguay, Laforgue moved to Paris in 1876.  His work is regarded as a precursor to modern poetry, balancing humorous and ironic insights into everyday life with passages of free association, which alternate between reality and dreams. Caulfield extracted lines from the poems which sparked his imagination. He has said: 


    They are not illustrations but complementary images. There are few visually descriptive lines in Laforgue. The images suggest the things I have imagined the poet seeing when he wrote the poem.


    Caulfield worked on studies for a book of Laforgue’s poems between 1969 and 1972. He wanted to juxtapose contemporary images with lines of poetry to create a sense of mystery beyond the apparent deadpan tone of Laforgue's words. In his essay published in Patrick Caulfield: The Complete Prints 1964–1999, art critic, Mel Gooding comments on Caulfield’s interpretation of the poems:


    They add up to an inventory of absences. Isolating into sharp focus the most banal objects, ‘contemporary’ style coat-hooks, a plain wall-clock, a menu, kitchen unit doors, a glass of water, etc ..., he presents them … as items of the furniture and accoutrements of the life of the self-mocking poet/lover, locked by ennui and indecision into a ridiculous solitude in hotel rooms, cafés and public gardens…


  • About the artist
    Born in London in 1936, Patrick Caulfield was a painter and printmaker. He studied Graphic Design and Painting at Chelsea School of Art, and Fine Art at the Royal College of Art. Caulfield started printmaking in 1964 and collaborated with key print studios in London. During the 1970s and ‘80s he also completed numerous commissions for mural, textile and theatrical set designs. Short-listed for the Turner Prize in 1987, Caulfield was later elected a Royal Academician in 1993. In 1995, he shared the Jerwood Painting Prize with the painter Maggi Hambling and received a CBE in the following year. His paintings and prints can be found in numerous public collections in the UK, Japan, Australia, Germany and Portugal. Two years before his death, he participated in a British Council touring group exhibition in South America. A survey exhibition of Caulfield’s work was held at Tate Britain in 2013.
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  • Details
    Title
    Her handkerchief swept me along the Rhine
    Edition
    50/100
    Date
    1973
    Medium
    Screenprint
    Dimensions
    height: 61.00 cm, width: 57.00 cm
    Acquisition
    Purchased from the Sho gallery, September 1998
    Inscription
    below image: [right] Patrick Caulfield 50/100
    Provenance
    Purchased from the Sho Gallery 1998.
    GAC number
    17333