There’s not much to discover about Patrick Caulfield that hasn’t already been told—or at least, so you might think. A new exhibition, opening in London in September, will reveal some rare works by the English Pop artist, including this very early painting of a pony, from 1964, in what would be a breakthrough year for the artist following his inclusion in the Whitechapel Gallery’s New Generation exhibition. Pony, Marco Livingstone writes in 2005, was “painted from a rather poor black and white photograph which he found in a magazine”. We’d be remiss to assume that the joyfully minimal and mysterious image points to any deeper meaning. Livingstone continues: “The more knowledge one brings to the painting, the more it will yield in terms of meaning; but Caulfield insists that it can equally well be viewed as nothing more than a fairly accurate, if stylized, depiction of a pony’.” Caulfield shows at Waddington Custot in London from 10 September to 15 November.
