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An exhibition of paintings by the distinguished artist Howard Hodgkin will go on display today (24 May) at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

̽»¨Ö±²¥exhibition, which runs until 23 September, has been organised jointly with the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven and celebrates Hodgkin's work of the last fifteen years with a unique selection of paintings.

None of the works on display were included in the 2006 Tate retrospective which toured to Dublin and Madrid and fourteen of the twenty-five works have never been shown publicly in Britain.

Hodgkin's distinctive style and intense use of colour have earned him international recognition as one of the most important British artists working today.

An artist of international standing, Hodgkin held his first one-man show when he was thirty and achieved recognition in New York before he was known in London. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1984 and was awarded the Turner Prize the following year. He will celebrate his 75th birthday during the run of this exhibition.

Duncan Robinson, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museums said “We are particularly pleased that this very personal selection of recent paintings by so distinguished an artist will be on display in Cambridge throughout the summer, affording students and residents, as well as the Fitzwilliam's many visitors from this country and abroad, an ideal opportunity to enjoy these rich and striking works, many on public view for the first time.

Hodgkin is particularly interested in installation, believing that the convention of hanging contemporary works on white walls needs to be reconsidered. His works are also unique: unlike those artists who follow Monet's example and work in series, Hodgkin starts from scratch with each painting.

He paints in oil on wood, often re-using old panels and frames. Working from memory, he both reveals and obscures his subjects by layering the picture surface with bold colours and distinctive marks. Many of his paintings relate to artists represented in the Fitzwilliam Museum's collections such as After Samuel Palmer and After Degas.

Hodgkin describes his paintings as ‘representational pictures of emotional situations.' They attempt to recapture the intensity of experience.

̽»¨Ö±²¥Fitzwilliam Museum is open from 10am-5pm, Tuesday to Saturday and from 12pm-5pm, Sunday and Bank Holidays.

̽»¨Ö±²¥museum welcomes over 300,000 visitors a year, offers a wide-ranging programme of temporary exhibitions and events and has an award-winning education service.

Admission to the permanent collections and to temporary exhibitions is free. To find out more about the museum, click on the link to the right of the page.