Dazzled by colour

The gallery walls of the Level Two temporary exhibition space at Tate Britain are currently aflame with colour. The gallery is playing host to the first exhibition ever to span the entire career of Sir Howard Hodgkin (born in 1932), though there have been plenty of other shows of his work over the years. (Notable among them being displays at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1990 and 2002, the Hayward Gallery in 1996 and the Whitechapel in 1985, not to mention numerous commercial shows in between.) Despite the dazzling white surfaces of the studio in which he works, Hodgkin often exhibits his paintings on coloured walls, and the Tate show is no exception. It begins with rag-rolled warm grey walls, transmutes into pale green and thence into subtle lemony-cream and brown, before ending up with old gold. The exhibition decor is almost a work of art itself.