Patrick Hughes
Patrick Hughes’ first solo show was in 1961 in Mayfair, London. A catalogue introduction was by the critic David Sylvester. He has since held one-person exhibitions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and New York, and In Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland - one hundred and fifty-four so far.
The first half of the 1970s saw Patrick living in Chelsea and Ladbroke Grove and painting rainbows. The rainbows became very popular as prints which he made with Coriander Studios for Christies Contemporary Art, and as postcards for Camden Graphics.
Over the years about 1,000,000 rainbow postcards and 10,000 screenprints have been sold. People thought the rainbows were cheerful, but Patrick felt they were misunderstood; they were acts of subversion, visual puns.
His interest lay in the contradiction of turning or fixing an experience or event into a solid thing. The Tate Gallery, the British Library, the British Academy, The Wurth Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Detroit Institute of Art and many other institutions hold Hughes’ art. His resourceful and imaginative work, reflecting on the history of art and architecture is inspiring and revelatory about our world and how we relate to it.
