International Art News

Pablo Picasso The Three Dancers 1925 Tate © Succession Picasso/DACS 2011

From February 15 to July 15, 2012 – Tate Britain
Picasso remains the twentieth century’s single most important artistic figure, a towering genius who changed the face of modern art.

In a major new exhibition at Tate Britain, Picasso and Modern British Art explores his extensive legacy and influence on British art, how this played a role in the acceptance of modern art in Britain, alongside the fascinating story of Picasso’s lifelong connections to and affection for this country.

It brings together over 150 spectacular artworks, with over 60 stunning Picassos including sublime paintings from the most remarkable moments in his career, such as Weeping Woman 1937 and The Three Dancers 1925.

It offers the rare opportunity to see these celebrated artworks alongside seven of Picasso’s most brilliant British admirers, exploring the huge impact he had on their art: Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney.

Picasso and Modern British Art is the first exhibition to trace Picasso’s rise in Britain as a figure of both controversy and celebrity. From his London visit in 1919, working on the scenery and costumes for Diaghilev’s ballet The Three Cornered Hat; to his post-war reputation and political appearances; leading up to the phenomenally successful 1960 Tate exhibition.

Full of beautiful and inspirational artworks, this exhibition is an unmissable treat and a fascinating insight into how British art became modern.

Museum Hours

July 31st to October 17th 2010 – Bridgestone Museum of Art – Ishibashi Foundation
Henry Moore, the pre-eminent British sculptor of the twentieth century, is famous for monumental outdoor sculptures that fuse humanity and nature. Despite his global fame, Moore lived in a small village in the countryside, where he was inspired by the pebbles, bones, and other natural objects he found there.
Moore’s six sculpture was always based on the human form, even when it seemed most abstract. He expressed an organic sense of life in materials that included stone and bronze. The secret of the powerful life force within the organic forms of his sculptures is a humanism that contemporary society tends to make light of.
This exhibition introduces, in addition to six sculptures, forty works on paper, including pastel, watercolors, and lithographs. Preliminary drawings for his sculptures become rare from around 1950 as Moore came to regard his drawings and watercolors as works of art in their own right. The exhibition includes works on paper addressing the Reclining Figure and Mother and Child themes that Moore pursued throughout his life. It also offers the opportunity to see a remarkable series of nineteen Stonehenge prints inspired by that vast and mysterious monument.

Museum Hours

Until 08 August 2010 -

Radical, experimental and avant-garde, Henry Moore (1898–1986) was one of Britain’s greatest artists. This stunning exhibition takes a fresh look at his work and legacy, presenting over 150 stone sculptures, wood carvings, bronzes and drawings.

Moore rebelled against his teachers’ traditional views of sculpture, instead taking inspiration from non-Western works he saw in museums. He pioneered carving directly from materials, evolving his signature abstract forms derived from the human body. This exhibition presents examples of the defining subjects of his work, such as the reclining figure, mother and child, abstract compositions and drawings of wartime London. The works are situated in the turbulent ebb and flow of twentieth-century history, sometimes uncovering a dark and erotically charged dimension that makes us look at them in a new light. The trauma of war, the advent of psychoanalysis, new ideas of sexuality, primitive art and surrealism all had an influence on Moore’s work.

Highlights of the show include a group of key reclining figures carved in Elm, which illustrate the development of this key image over his career. Moore was an Official War Artist and his drawings of huddled Londoners sheltering from the onslaught of the Blitz captured the popular imagination, winning him a place in the hearts of the public. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to truly understand this artist’s much-loved work / Britain’s most successful sculptor.
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Tate Britain
Millbank
London SW1P 4RG