There are few brushstrokes in contemporary painting that announce themselves as impudently as those of Howard Hodgkin. Ranging from swirling swathes to patterned splotches, Hodgkin’s brushstrokes are at once an homage to the act of painting and a tweaking of it. His splotch, a younger relative of the Pointillist dot, is gratifyingly childlike, and Hodgkin clearly delights in its obviousness. We know how these splotches are made—the artist presses his loaded brush onto the painting’s surface, then lifts it—and we smile to imagine making them ourselves.

There is ample opportunity to view Hodgkin’s brushwork in the fifty paintings included in the exhibition “Howard Hodgkin: Paintings 1975–1995.” Hodgkin is a British painter who has received international recognition and critical accolades, but who isn’t exactly a known quantity to American audiences. A lot of people will be seeing his work for th ...

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