The Mysterious Suspicion: After Magritte (Primary Title)
Patrick Caulfield, English, 1936 - 2005 (Artist)
I find man-made things always intriguing, from sophisticated design to cruder street or shop signs. . . . I’ve always liked urban imagery as opposed to landscape or “nature.” —Patrick Caulfield
Caulfield emerged as part of a second wave of British Pop Art in the 1960s. Though he resisted American Pop Art’s embrace of popular culture and mass consumerism, he applied that style’s bold colors, flat shapes, and crisp lines to all kinds of subjects, including ordinary rooms that he transformed into disorienting spaces.
The Mysterious Suspicion is based on Surrealist artist René Magritte’s 1928 painting of the same title. Magritte had depicted his brother looking at his hand; Caulfield shows an updated figure in a ‘70s setting. While compositionally complex—with deep pictorial space and an active pattern of flat, solid-colors— Caulfield’s version retains the simple and enigmatic subject matter he admired in the original.
20th Century Art, Bedford Gallery, Longwood College, Farmville, VA, January 17 – February 19, 1988
Faces/Figures, Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, November 19 – December 20, 1987.
Patrick Caulfield: Paintings 1963-81, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, August 22 - October 4, 1981; The Tate Gallery, London, October 27, 1981 – January 3, 1982
Contemporary Art from the Collection of Sydney and Francis Lewis, Lewis Hall, Washington & Lewis University, Lexington, VA, May 1977
Patrick Caulfield, F&M Gallery, Richmond, VA, July 1976
O.K. Harris, New York, NY, 1974
Patrick Caulfield: Paintings. London: Waddington Galleries, 2007. Exhibition catalogue. (No. 28 and 29, np).
Livingstone, Marco. Patrick Caulfield: Paintings. Hampshire, UK: Lund Humphries, 2005. (P. 76, color ill. p. 81).
Whitfield, Sarah. Magritte. London: The South Bank Centre, 1992. (B/w ill. p. 14; p. 17; p. 19).
Brandt, Frederick R. Late 20th Century Art. Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1985. No. 13, p. 30-1).
Livingstone, Marco. Patrick Caulfield: Paintings 1963-81. London: The Tate Gallery, 1981. (P. 65).
Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.
