Howard Hodgkin
Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1932[1] in Hammersmith, London, the son of Eliot Hodgkin (1905–1973), a manager for the chemical company ICI and a noted amateur horticulturist, and his wife Katherine, a botanical illustrator.[2][3] During the Second World War, Eliot Hodgkin was an RAF officer, rising to Wing Commander, and was assistant to Sefton Delmer in running his black propaganda campaign against Nazi Germany.[4] His
maternal grandfather Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart was a journalist, lawyer, Member of Parliament (MP) and Lord Chief Justice; and the scientist Thomas Hodgkin was his great-great-grandfather's older brother.[5] Hodgkin was a cousin of the English still life painter Eliot Hodgkin (1905–1987).[6] During the Second World War, Hodgkin was evacuated with his mother and sister to the US, where they lived on Long Island, New York.[7] On returning, he was educated at Eton College[8] and then at Bryanston School in Dorset.[1] He had decided on a career in art in early childhood and ran away from school to pursue this.[7] He studied at the Camberwell Art School[8] and later at the Bath Academy of Art in Corsham,[1] where Edward Piper studied drawing under him.
