The paintings of the British Pop artist Patrick Caulfield are closely linked to the history of art. He translates past images by creating very modern compositions.

A donation from the Friends of the Museums, the painting Bend in the Road refers back to La route tournante, a work created by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) in 1905. By reducing it to three colours and black outlines, Caulfield constructs a modern image from Cézanne’s landscape, breaking new ground in the understanding and handling of colour through a clever use of black and creating an illusion of depth. His aim is to bring the viewer into the painting. He reduces the painted image to its basic elements. Although, like many Pop artists, he sometimes used existing images, his paintings are often the result of an assiduous search in which he tries to understand painting without reducing it to a conceptual, minimalist or ironic act.

Born in 1936, Caulfield completed his art studies at the Royal College of Art after having spent four years at the Chelsea School of Art. Early in his career, he developed his own highly simplified and neutral pictorial language that is inspired by both advertising and comics. In his work, he is interested in defining space through lines and light through colour.

The MNHA has three of the artist’s works in its collections: Bend in the road (1967), Stained glass window (1967), and Desk (1991) are all original variations on traditional themes: landscape, interior and still life.