Hodgkin: a response

The blog you posted on Art notes recently is terrific. I have been watching this artist from London for some years now- and when I saw that our friend Kimmelman reviewed it
with such relish, I was delighted and wrote you an
e-mail about this exhibit. You were already "tuned-in on the subject" and wrote an e-mail to me. Good work. It is people like yourself and the intelligent and informed art critic such as Michael Kimmelman that people like myself can rejoice in the new found hope that some sanity and some validity in the documentation of that which is vital and vibrant in the world of art can be achieved and enjoyed. The same vigilance required to monitor the convolutions of government in today's world in upheaval, should also be used in the art world when listening to critics and also professors of art in the universities to make sure they are not teaching current events in the place of art history.That vigilance of which I refer, should be the true function of the art scholar. You have been very swift in connecting the things that
you and I have been discussing.
....For example-
what you brought out in your art comment regarding size, is very important. These are things which in my opinion have not as yet been pursued in depth. In the Exhibit in which I was included- "Abstract Expressionism, Other Dimensions", Jeff Wechsler, Asst. Director, Curator of The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, included in
the text a passage about me. and reproduced the painting; "Piazza del Popolo" which I painted in Rome, in 1950. The size, 27,3/8 x 17,1/2". Not very big. Wechsler made his
point beautifully in this landmark exhibit. It travelled and was a big success.

*Image- Piazza del Popolo, 1950,28" x 18", oil on canvas, permanent collection of Zimmerli Museum of Art



--Vincent Pepi 3/01/'07