Ah! storm clouds rushed from the Channel coasts

Location

Country: France
City: Paris
Place: British Embassy

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…

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.

Places

Subjects

Laforgue, Jules, poetry, railing, balcony

Materials & Techniques

screenprint

Artist

Patrick Caulfield (1936 - 2005)

Title

Ah! storm clouds rushed from the Channel coasts

Portfolio Title

Some Poems of Jules Laforgue: Edition B (French Edition)

Edition

66/200

Date

1973

Medium

Screenprint

Dimensions

height: 40.50 cm, width: 35.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Yvonne Andrews, January 1995

Inscription

signed and numbered verso

GAC number

16887