Howard Hodgkin (b.1932) is among the most important artists working in Britain today. Nominally abstract, his paintings are, in his words, "representational pictures of emotional situations." Layering paint on his surfaces and frames (sometimes over the course of years), Hodgkin creates intense experiences for his viewers.

A focused intellectual and physical process goes into making each work, as each painting is built up from a series of interlocking elements: the event or situation that inspires the artist, the evolution of that inspiration as the painting is created, and the impact of the finished object on those who experience it.

Often Hodgkin makes teasing reference in his titles to past artists and artistic conventions. But he is adamant that these associations are at most allusive-in fact, they are sometimes decidedly deceptive and even playful. The titles may pay homage to an encounter, an instance, or an object that sparked the artist's creativity, but they do not describe or proscribe individual encounters with the work.

Hodgkin's ability to confound discussion of his work is legendary. Yet, the particular quality of the works that frustrates articulate description of their subjects or meanings is precisely that which engages artist, object, and audience.

From 1940 to 1943, Hodgkin lived on Long Island, having been evacuated from London during World War II. It was during these formative years that he resolved to become an artist. He later attended the Camberwell School of Art and the Bath Academy of Art, Corsham, England. In 1984, he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and, the following year, won the Turner Prize, the most prestigious award granted to a living artist by a British art museum (Tate). Throughout his career, his work has been exhibited extensively by U.S. museums. The Yale Center for British Art and the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., showed a selection of his work in 1985; a decade later, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth organised a major retrospective, which opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and toured to museums in Fort Worth, Dusseldorf, and London. A selection of his work was exhibited in 2003 at Gagosian Gallery in New York. Most recently, a major retrospective of his work, organised by Tate Britain and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, was also shown at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.

2003 Print Retrospective, Alan Cristea Gallery, London - coincide with launch of Thames & Hudson print catalogue raisonné         

2002 Pace Editions, New York         

Galerie Lutz & Thalmann Dean Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

The Galleries Show - Contemporary Art in London, Royal Academy, London         

2001 Alan Cristea Gallery, London (graphics)         

Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (graphics)         

2000 Anthony d'Offay, London         

Encounters,'National Gallery, London         

1998 Signature Pieces, Alan Cristea Gallery, London         

1995 - 1996 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York         

Modern Art Museum, Fort

Hayward Gallery London         

Alan Cristea Gallery, London (graphics)         

Smith Andersen Gallery, California (graphics, curated by Carleen Keating)         

1993 - 1994 M. Knoedler and Co. Inc, New York         

Here and Now, Serpentine Gallery, London         

Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London         

The Sixties Art Scene in London, Barbican Art Gallery, London         

1992 British Figurative Painting, Israel Museum         

1990 - 1991 Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin         

British Council exhibition toured to: Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nantes; Caixa de Pensions, Barcelona, Spain         

1990 - 1991 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh         

1991 Karsten Schubert, London (graphics)         

Brooke Alexan der Editions, New York         

Waddington Galleries, London (graphics)         

1989 - 1990 British Council exhibition toured to: Spain, Morocco and Greece (graphics)

1990 Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne         

Reynolds/Minor Gallery, Richmond, Virginia; Ganz Gallery, Cambridge; Lumley-Cazalet, London (graphics)         

1989 The Joanne Chappell Gallery, San Francisco (graphics)         

Marsha Mateyka Gallery, Washington D.C. (graphics)         

Gallery Ikeda-Bijutsu, Japan (graphics)         

1988 Waddington Galleries, London         

M. Knoedler and Co., Inc., New York         

1987 Waddington Galleries, London (graphics)         

British Art in the 20th Century, Royal Academy, London         

1986The Window in Twentieth-Century Art, Neuberger Museum, New York         

Forty Years of Modern Art 1945-1985, Tate Gallery, London         

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York         

1984 - 1985 Phillips Collection, Whitechapel Art Gallery and British Council exhibition toured to: British Pavilion; Venice Biennale; The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut; Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

1985 LA Louver Gallery, Los Angeles         

Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London (graphics)         

Tate Gallery, London (graphics)         

Made in India, Museum of Modern Art, New York         

Whitechapel Art Gallery London         

1984 M. Knoedler and Co. Inc., New York         

An International Survey of Recent Paintings & Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York         

1984 Venice Biennale         

1983 Hayward Gallery London         

1981 - 1982 University of Queensland Art Museum and British Council exhibition toured throughout Australia (graphics)         

1982 Bernard Jacobson, London (graphics)         

Tate Gallery, London         

Aspects of British Art Today, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, touring to Tochigi Perfectural Museum of Fine Art, Utsunomiya National Museum of Art,Osaka Fukuoka Art Museum Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan         

1981 M. Knoedler and Co. Inc., New York         

Bernard Jacobson, Los Angeles (graphics)         

A New Spirit in Painting, Royal Academy, London         

1980 Bernard Jacobson, New York (graphics)         

1977 - 1979 Museum of Modern Art, Oxford exhibition toured throughout England (graphics)         

1979 The Artist's Eye, National Gallery, London         

1978 Riverside Studios, London (graphics); British Council exhibition toured to India, Malaysia and Colombia (graphics)         

1977 Hayward Annual, Hayward Gallery, London         

British Artist of the Sixties from the collections of the Tate Gallery, Tate Gallery, London         

1976 Arts Council exhibition toured to Museum of Modern Art; Oxford Serpentine Gallery, London; Turpike Gallery, Leigh Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield         

1976 Waddington/Kasmin Galleries, London         

Tate Gallery, London (graphics)         

Museum of Modern Art Oxford         

1975 Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (graphics)         

1974Tokyo Biennale - First International Biennale Exhibition of Figurative Paintings in Toyko, Shibuya Tokyo Department Store, touring to Hanshin Department Store, Osaka, Japan         

1973 Henry Moore to Gilbert and George - Modern British Art from the Tate Gallery' Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium         

1972 Waddington Galleries, London (graphics)         

1971 Galerie Muller, Cologne         

1970 Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol         

Contemporary British Art, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, in collaboration with the British Council         

1969 Kasmin Gallery, London         

1967 Arthur Tooth and Sons, London         

Paris Biennale, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France         

1966 Serpentine Gallery London         

1965 Pop Art, Nouveau Realism, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium         

1964 Arthur Tooth & Sons London         

1963 British Printing in the Sixties, Tate Gallery and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (organized by Contemporary Art Society)