Patrick Caulfield C.B.E. R.A. (British, 1936-2005)
Tulips

titled 'Tulips' (lower right, beneath the mount)
oil on card
Painted in 1973

Dimensions: 69.8 x 94.6 cm. (27 1/2 x 37 1/4 in.)

With Waddington Galleries Ltd, London

“[Caulfield] had come to favour the depiction of familiar objects and invented places that draw the viewer into an illusion of three-dimensional space solely by means of two-dimensional forms and devices.” - Marco Livingstone, author of Patrick Caulfield: Paintings

Patrick Caulfield rose to prominence in the mid-1960s following his studies at the Royal College of Art, where he was a contemporary of David Hockney. His inclusion in the landmark New Generation exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1964 established his connection with the emerging Pop Art movement and marked the beginning of his recognition as a leading figure in British contemporary art.

Patrick Caulfield was known for his distinctive blend of Pop Art clarity and traditional still life or interior subjects. During the 1970s, Caulfield’s work evolved into one of his most refined and conceptually rich periods, marked by his exploration of monochromatic compositions, precise technique, and a tension between flatness and illusion. Tulips of 1973 is perfect in illustrating this, the flatness of the composition and monochromatic tone, the clean, pop and modern components of an incredibly traditional image - the still life of flowers in a vase.

Patrick Caulfield drew inspiration from both the clarity of modern design and the compositional rigour of traditional painting, combining the two to create images that were at once coolly detached and quietly poetic. Influenced by artists such as Georges Braque, Juan Gris, and Fernand Léger, as well as by everyday commercial imagery and architectural interiors, he sought to strip painting down to its essential components of form, colour, and light. Caulfield often said he wanted his work to have “a kind of timeless quality,” avoiding contemporary references so that his images might feel simultaneously modern and classical. He had a true belief in the quiet dignity of ordinary subjects that lay at the heart of his monochromatic interiors and still lifes of the 1970s, where subtle shifts of tone and precision of line transformed the mundane into something contemplative and enduring.