Clubmen of America: Mafiosi

Literature

Brenda Atkinson (2002) Robert Hodgins. Cape Town: Tafelberg Publishers. Illustrated on page 109.

Notes

In 2000, Robert Hodgins began work on a suite of paintings depicting various American social archetypes, including gridiron footballers, uniformed cadets, hooded Klansmen, pinstriped financiers and this empty-eyed group of red-tie wearing mafiosi. While bounded by a unifying theme and shared title, Hodgins adopted a range of compositional techniques in his Daumier-influenced exploration of social identity. His figures ranged from rudimentary to finely wrought, while his palette reflected a conscious move between taut economy and lavish abundance. Unlike Clubmen of America: Academy Cadets (2002), a detailed study in blue of trainee officers sold by Strauss & Co in 2015 for R1 591 520, this work is consistent with a subset of more graphic paintings. In each, the pictorial subject is rendered through form and line; colour plays a supporting role. It is almost as if this quartet of men with monolithic heads resembling moai sculpture from the Easter Islands were chiselled rather than painted.