The Secretary of State has appointed Paintings in Hospitals' Chair of Trustees Andrew Hochhauser KC as Chair of The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA).

Andrew has been a trustee of Paintings in Hospitals for nearly ten years and has today been appointed for a four year term as Chair of RCEWA.

The RCEWA is an independent body. It advises the Secretary of State for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) whether a cultural object intended for export is a national treasure. Any item considered too important to leave the UK can be placed under temporary export deferral.

The Reviewing Committee is made up of eight permanent members, who have expertise in one or more fields (paintings, decorative arts, manuscripts, archaeology, etc). This allows the committee as a whole to take an objective view on the national importance of objects brought before it and provide advice to the Secretary of State.

Andrew is a KC at Essex Court Chambers, a Deputy High Court Judge, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Hon Counsel to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. As well as a LLM from the LSE, Andrew has an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he studied British Modernism.

He is a former trustee of the V&A, a Bencher and the former Treasurer of the Hon Soc of Middle Temple, chair of the Samuel Courtauld Trust and an ex officio member of the Board of the Courtauld Institute of Art, a governor of the University of the Arts London, a trustee of the National AIDS Trust, the V&A Foundation, the Aurora Orchestra, Orchestra for the Earth and a director of Ensemble Plus Ultra. He was chair of Dance Umbrella from 2007-2014 and thereafter a governor of the Central School of Ballet.

Andrew is currently on the Board of Ballet Black and is Chair of the Board of Trustees at Paintings in Hospitals.