Export Bar has been placed on a Painting by British Artist Howard Hodgkin
An export bar has been placed on a painting by modern British artist, Howard Hodgkin in an effort to save the masterpiece for the nation.
Following expert advice, Ministers have applied an export bar to allow time for a UK buyer to come forward and ensure this culturally important work remains accessible to the public.
Howard Hodgkin was a celebrated figure in British contemporary art and is considered to be one of the world’s greatest colourists. His work is often described as abstract, however he famously described his paintings as “representational pictures of emotional situations,” aiming to capture the essence of specific memories, encounters, and feelings.
Mrs Acton in Delhi is a vibrant oil on canvas work that marks a turning point in Hodgkin’s career. Hodgkin first travelled to India in 1964 and kept vivid travel diaries which record several days spent with John Stewart Acton and his wife in Delhi in 1967. The painting depicts Mrs Acton reclining on a terrace in Delhi, India, where her husband was a British Council representative.
The British Council championed Hodgkin’s work internationally as a representation of British excellence and creative exchange. The British Council is the UK’s primary international organisation for cultural relations, making this work a direct visual record of British diplomatic presence and cultural exchange in India.
Hodgkin’s painting was also a centrepiece of the 2017 UK-India Year of Culture, which was a major initiative celebrating the shared history and cultural ties between the two nations.
This painting documents the transition in Hodgkin’s style from early Pop Art influences to the emotive abstraction that came to define late twentieth-century British painting.
The Committee made its recommendation on the basis that the painting met the second and third Waverley criteria for its aesthetic importance and outstanding significance to the study of modern British painting, corporate collecting history and networks of patronage and promotion.
The decision on the export licence application for the painting will be deferred for a period ending on 4 June 2026 inclusive. At the end of the first deferral period owners will have a consideration period of 15 Business Days to consider any offer(s) to purchase the painting at the recommended price of £1,753,400 (plus VAT of £68,480). The second deferral period will commence following the signing of an Option Agreement and will last for four months.