Notes

A Golem Couple presents two clearly delineated figures that, as is typical of Robert Hodgins's late style, bear almost no distinguishing features. Both are dark skinned and wedged into blue jeans. Neither figure wears a shirt, which enables the viewer to distinguish their genders. But the titular couple possess no facial features. They are generic rather than particular human types. Hodgins's choice of title supports this reading of his work as an unspecified portrait. The Hebrew word "golem" comes from the Old Testament of the Bible and has been used to refer to an artificial humanoid figure in Jewish lore. The word golem has variously been translated as "undeveloped" and "unformed,"¹ which is also a fair assessment of Hodgins's figures in this work (and indeed most of his late-career paintings). On the importance of titles and titling as a navigational guide to his work, Hodgins in 2007 stated: "My paintings find the words, the words don't find my paintings. I very rarely start off painting with any sort of idea at all."² One noteworthy feature of A Golem Couple is the nearly undifferentiated pink ground in which Hodgins situates his figures. Hodgins would occasionally create luridly pink canvases. His recurring use of pink was partly informed by his love for the work of Canadian-born American painter Phillip Guston, who in his later career disavowed pure abstraction in favour of existentially fraught, yet politically sharp figurative painting informed by comic book traditions.

The influence of Guston is clearly discernable in Hodgins's canvases from the 1980s, the start of an intensive period of painting that lasted until his death. In later canvases this love affair is submerged. Thematic and colour affinities aside, Hodgins shared with Guston a passion for cigarettes. Hodgins serially depicted a variety of types, notably businessmen, generals and rakes. Suburban couples are another Hodgins type. In the year that he produced this painting, Hodgins also painted a trio of vaguely formulated figures in a domestic setting, titled Three Golem Figures. Strauss & Co successfully sold this in 2012 for nearly R900 000, the start of a pronounced growth trend in works by Hodgins at auction.

1. Judith Markowitz. (2015) 'Cultural Icons', in Robots that Talk and Listen, Berlin: De Gruyter. Page 35.
2. Sean O'Toole. (2008) 'The Human Fog', in The Ceramic Art of Robert Hodgins, Cape Town: Bell-Roberts. Page 120.