Biography

Hugh Barnden was born in Oxfordshire in 1946 and educated at the Royal College of Art 1968-1971. Before entering the Royal College, Barnden studied furniture design with John Makepeace. From the mid 1970s he turned exclusively to painting, participating in Eroticism in Fashion at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1976, with his first one-man exhibition in Amsterdam in 1978.

Barnden has been represented by Francis Kyle Gallery since 1982, when he took part in the Gallery's winter theme exhibition, We must always turn South. In 1983 he showed paintings and drawings in New York. Besides contributing to the Gallery's theme exhibitions from Tuscan Summer (1985), Venezia Ancora (1987) and Paradise is here: ten painters in Moghul and Rajput India (1989) to South of the Border: nine painters at large in Mexico (1991) and Roma (2003), Hugh Barnden has held nine one-man exhibitions with Francis Kyle Gallery in 1983, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1997, 1999 and 2001 (Paintings of Portofino and the Italian Riviera).

Hugh Barnden

In developing a language to express his jubilant vision of the south, Hugh Barnden acknowledges his indebtedness to Dufy in his fauve period, to the Bonnard of balcony and window perspectives, and most specially to the Matisse who said, 'to perfect is to simplify.'

The works in gouache with their crisp, untentative clarity, point to another major influence, this time from a source outside Europe: the Japanese print, characterized by a relative absence of shadow and modelling and the use of areas of flat colour. Executed as always in response to the physical appeal of a setting, these paintings owe their structure less to the visual realities of this landscape than to considerations of composition. From the masters of ukiyo-e Barnden has learnt to tilt his picture plane in order to reduce perspective, telescoping objects from far away and close to, producing sometimes a slight sensation of vertigo, at others replacing the illusion of space so as to replace the illusion of space with a sense of pattern and decorative harmony.

As always, what counts is a harmonious approach to mood. 'My subject,' he observes, 'is only the jumping-off point for colour. This harbour is only an excuse for a joyous game in paint, form, shape, and pattern. Mischief and play is everything.'

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