Eileen Hogan

Life and work

Hogan was born in London and studied at Camberwell School of Arts (1963–1967), the Royal Academy Schools (1967–1970), the British School of Archaeology at Athens (1970–1971) and the Royal College of Art (1971–1973). Robert Medley, Head of Painting at Camberwell, was himself an influence on Hogan, and provided his students with an eclectic mix of visiting lecturers, including Frank Auerbach, Ronald Kitaj, Anthony Fry, Patrick Procktor and Euan Uglow.

Hogan remembers:

"Euan Uglow would have a model in for several months. The model would keep the same pose, and we would all draw intensely and slowly. Auerbach would be different. He would draw in the studio, charcoal flying everywhere, and we'd work in a haze of dust."

Carel Weight was the Professor of Painting at the RCA and in a catalogue for an exhibition of Hogan’s paintings at The Fine Art Society in 1993 he wrote:

"...She found her motifs in the parks and gardens of South London near her home. The paintings were very original. The skies were blotted out by rich, dark trees, dense olive in colour with long shadows cast by trees across the foreground and the scenes were peopled by dark shapes. All these elements were evocative of the late summer afternoons with a suggestion of thunder in the atmosphere…"

George Melly wrote in The Guardian (1993) about a painting from the time when Hogan lived in Athens:

"…Athinas shows a rainy street of shoddy shops whose Greek lettering is the only explanations of its Hellenic title (we might otherwise be in Huddersfield). There are written graffiti, reflections, groups of people with umbrellas. There's something going on here. Something being kept from us. As uneasy as a Hitchcock scene."

Hogan has shown regularly at The Fine Art Society, London since 1980 - the most recent exhibition being with the painter Leonard Rosoman R.A. in 2008. Commissions and awards include recording the Women's Royal Naval Services for the Artistic Records Committee of the Imperial War Museum, a Churchill Traveling Fellowship for research in America, Australia and Japan, and most recently, in 2009, as the Artist-in-Residence for The All England Lawn Tennis Club Championships.

Throughout Hogan's career, her paintings have related to places which have significance for her, and she has developed specific projects over a number of years. She painted Ian Hamilton Finlay in his garden at Little Sparta, between 1997 and 2006 (triptych of IHF shown in the BP Portrait Award in 2007, portrait of IHF, shown in the RA Summer Exhibition 2008, and Beehives at Little Sparta, shown in the RA Summer Exhibition in 2009). Other portraits include Lady Sainsbury of Preston Candover, formerly Anya Linden, ballerina, shown in the BP Portrait Award 2009.

In 2006 The Fine Art Society exhibited her series of paintings based around four garden squares, near her home. Christopher Gibbs wrote in the accompanying publication:

"…Each garden is a concealed world of which the outsider gets a green veiled glimpse, each has in common areas for maintenance, recreation and repose. These intriguing spaces, which Eileen now shares with us, have inside them atmospheres and characteristics which even the most incorrigible snoopers can never sense, and unique vantage points from which to contemplate the surrounding architecture, its joys and woes..."

Hogan's interest in book art was triggered by her love of lettering, the relationship between words and images and lettering as drawing. She produced three books with the Lion and Unicorn Press when she was a student at the Royal College of Art and went on to establish The Camberwell Press at Camberwell College of Arts, and was its Director from 1984–1997. Recent exhibitions of Hogan’s book art include Eileen Hogan’s Poetry Box (San Francisco Center for the Book) in 2007, in 2009 Romilly Saumarez Smith: Bindings for Eileen Hogan Victoria and Albert Museum. and in the same exhibition, expanded to include Saumarez Smith's jewelry and Hogan's portraits of Saumarez Smith, at the Yale Center for British Art in 2010.

Selected exhibitions

2011 - Royal Academy Summer Show also 2010, 2009,2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985, 1984, 1983, 1982, 1981, 1980, 1978, 1977, 1976, 1974

2010 - Structured Elegance: Bookbindings and Jewelry by Romilly Saumarez Smith, Yale Center for British Art

2009 - BP Portrait Awards, National Portrait Gallery (also 2007); Romilly Saumarez Smith: bookbindings for Eileen Hogan, Victoria and Albert Museum;

2008 - The Fine Art Society London, with Leonard Rosoman; (solo exhibitions at The Fine Art Society in 2006, 2000, 1997, 1992, 1988, 1986, 1985, 1982 and 1980)

2007 - Eileen Hogan’s Poetry Box San Francisco Center for the Book;, Laing Gallery, National Portrait Gallery of Scotland

2006 - Unregulated Printing, Cambridge University

2005 - Portraits, Power and Politics, Buckinghamshire County Museum; Recent Acquisitions: Yale Center for British Art

2004 - The Writer and the Garden, British Library

2002 - Processes of Renewal: Toshiba Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum

Earlier solo exhibitions include at the Imperial War Museum (1984) and the British Council in Athens (1983 and 1971)

Selected public collections

British Library

Buffalo University New York

Cambridge University Library

Esme Fairbairn Trust

Gleeson Library University of San Francisco

Government Art Collection

Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield

Stadsbibliotheek Haarlem

Houghton Library, Harvard

Imperial War Museum, London

The Library of Congress, Washington DC

National Library of Australia

Newberry Library, Chicago

Nuffield Foundation

Rijksmuseum-Meermanno, Hague

Stanford University

Tullie House City Museum, Carlisle

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

University of the Arts, London

Yale Center for British Art