The Gallery at The Met Store is pleased to present for sale Indian Leaves (1982) by Howard Hodgkin (British, 1932–2017). This limited-edition lithograph exemplifies the artist’s esteemed language of abstraction, characterized by gestural sweeps of emotive color.
The lithograph’s title, Indian Leaves, references the significant influence of India and Indian art on Hodgkin’s life, work, and remarkable personal collection, which was recently the subject of a celebrated Met exhibition.
Indian Skies: The Howard Hodgkin Collection of Indian Court Painting showcased over 120 Mughal, Deccani, Rajput, and Pahari artworks dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries in Hodgkin’s holdings, many of which the Museum recently acquired. This notable collection, which Hodgkin began while he was still in school and amassed over the course of 60 years, is recognized as one of the finest of its kind. It likewise illuminates the ways in which magnificent Indian illustrations, nature studies, portraits, and devotional subjects subtly informed Hodgkin’s own work.
Ever since the artist’s first visit to India in the mid-1960s, the country and its artistic heritage inspired him. The numerous paintings and prints that he made in homage to India were created from memory so as to evoke impressions of his time there: meetings with friends, visits to historic sites, travels throughout the terrain, and observations of the changing seasons.
In 1978, Hodgkin was invited to a compound in Ahmedabad, the largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat. There, he worked on a series made with vegetable dyes on paper from a local mill.
In anticipation of a 1982 exhibition of these works at the Tate Gallery in London, Hodgkin contributed the artist’s proof of Indian Leaves to the accompanying catalogue, thereby turning it into an édition de luxe. A series of 1,000 copies was subsequently made but never published, and revived some 40 years later thanks to its purchase by the Howard Hodgkin Legacy Trust. The edition for sale at The Gallery at The Met Store belongs to this series, a tribute to Hodgkin’s fondness for this colorful country.
The Gallery at The Met Store is accessible to visitors during Museum hours, and is currently operating by appointment only. Please call Laura Einstein in advance at 212-650-2908 or email Laura.Einstein@metmuseum.org.
* Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford