Patrick Hughes
b. 1939 | British

Two Speakers

Oil on board construction

Two Speakers offers a look inside the artist’s mind and reveals a melange of his influences from literature, fine art and the natural world. Besides the eponymous wood-grain speakers that bookend the composition, Hughes invites the viewer into a surreal, semi-interior space. Four multi-color rugs accent the floor, with designs reminiscent of traditional Navajo geometric patterns. On the right, a large bookshelf towers over the interior next to Eric Ravilious’s 1939 painting Cuckmere Haven, a beloved image of Sussex, which hangs on the rightmost wall.

Hughes references four other art historical masterpieces in Two Speakers. Placed by the door that opens onto a lush vista of snow-capped mountains and vivid blue water, Hughes renders Japanese master Utagawa Hiroshige’s Towboats Along the Yotsugi-dori Canal, hailing from his world-renowned series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, painted in 1857. The curving canal captured by Hiroshige is mirrored in Hughes’ brilliant landscape, building a dynamic synergy despite the surreal qualities of the image. Also featured in Two Speakers is British painter Edward Wadsworth’s Souvenir of Fiumicino (1939), a Moulin Rouge poster originally designed by Henri-Toulouse Lautrec entitled Moulin Rouge: La Goulue (1891), and on the far left, a painting of a snow-covered mill reminiscent of the works of Thomas Kinkade.