Black and White Flower Piece 1963

This painting was executed during Caulfield’s last term at the Royal College of Art, London (attended 1960-3). At the time, perhaps influenced by Jasper Johns (born 1930), whose paintings of flags and targets of the 1950s had stressed the physical reality, or object nature, of the work as being of equal value to its surface image, art students were particularly interested in using everyday objects as the starting point for their paintings. In common with his contemporaries, such as David Hockney (born 1937) who was studying in the year above him at the Royal College, Caulfield was taking his imagery from the world of the familiar, commenting in 1967 that ‘what we call inspiration results from a careful sifting of everyday experience’ (quoted in Patrick Caulfield: Paintings 1963-81, p.13). His early paintings used repeated patterns derived from such everyday objects as a soap packet, tartan fabric and a simple grid. In 1962 he incorporated structures, composed of strips of wood built into three dimensional grids resembling a garden trellis, into the surface of several paintings. The grids were surmounted by a cut-out image placed in the centre. Caulfield regarded these as unsuccessful and discarded them. Partly as a reaction against the dominant American movements of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, Caulfield looked to the work of European Cubists Juan Gris (1887-1927) and Fernand Léger (1881-1955) for inspiration. In such paintings by Léger as Still Life with a Beer Mug 1921-2 (Tate T02035), flat, monochromatic surfaces and surface patterning emphasise the decorative aspects of the image. In the 1960s Caulfield established his trademark style combining Cubist decoration with the more contemporary methods of sign-making and poster design. The grid background provided an early solution for juxtaposing an illusionistic image with a flat background and combining abstraction with figuration in one work. Two contemporaneous black and white paintings made on hardboard were the first works in which the artist felt he was able successfully to achieve this. These are Black and White Flower Piece and Engagement Ring (De Beers Central Selling Organisation, London).