Adult 1998

Hume’s Portraits is a series of ten screenprints commissioned by Charles Booth-Clibborn and published by him under his imprint, The Paragon Press, London. They were proofed and printed at Coriander Studio, London in an edition of thirty-six plus ten artist’s proofs. Tate’s copy is number eighteen in the edition. Each print was made using between three and fifteen colours and coated with several layers of varnish in sections. The varnish results in a sheer, glossy surface similar to that achieved by Hume’s use of household gloss paint in his paintings such as Incubus 1991 (Tate T07184) and Water Painting 1999 (Tate T07618). The prints are based on paintings Hume made between 1994 and 1998. Some of these paintings were derived from photographs, others from Hume’s imagination. Each print has a subtitle related to the original painting. This is the ninth image and its subtitle is Adult. It is based on a larger painting of the same title (1994, Carol & Arthur Goldberg Collection, New York) in gloss paint on MDF panel. Adult was inspired by the self-confident (and slightly intimidating) women Hume encountered in New York’s commercial galleries when Hume he was living there for a short period in the early 1990s. The image was adapted from a photograph found in a magazine. Unlike Yellow Hair (Tate P78684), another image in the series, in Adult the textured lines in the paint which delineate the subject’s features have not been lost in the transfer to print but have been turned into coloured line. In the painting the adult’s neck, head and top are all one colour. In the print the face is a darker flesh tone than the neck and top, with lines in the same darker pink depicting the contours of neck and clothing. Features are outlined in still darker colours and the open-lipped mouth is the same baby pink as the background. Behind the adult’s right shoulder is a large reddish-brown flower. His or her flesh-toned eyes have no pupils and stare blankly out at the viewer.