‘1.7.68’, is titled, like all Hoyland’s works, for the date on which he made it. It was painted just as the artist was beginning to see major success in his career, the year after his first big solo exhibition held at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. The painting is carefully constructed, with several rectangular fields of pure colour. The dramatic use of a bright yellow next to the more sombre tones of the painting follows Hoyland’s inclination “to take risks, to use colours that shouldn’t go together.”