‘Picasso & Modern British Art’ @ Tate Britain

From 15 February to 15 July 2012 a new Picasso exhibition comes to London – ‘Picasso & Modern British Art’ at the Tate Britain’s Linbury Galleries.

The exhibition will focus on Picasso’s relationship with the UK and his influence on British artists, so alongside the 60 of his own works which will be on display there will be another 90 by those British painters and sculpters who took inspiration from his work, including Francis Bacon, Henry Moore and David Hockney. Works by Pablo Picasso that will feature in the exhibition include:

• Head of a Man with a Moustache 1912 (Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris)
• Man with a Clarinet 1911-12 (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid) 
• Weeping Woman 1937 (Tate)
• Reading at a Table 1934 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, US)
• Women of Algiers (Version ‘O’), 1955 (Private Collection) 
• Still Life with Mandolin, 1924 (Stedelijk Museum, Netherlands)

To coincide with ‘Picasso & Modern British Art’, the English National Ballet will also be taking up residency in Tate Britain’s Duveen galleries for a week, from 27 February. This is in recognition of the importance of ballet to Picasso, and the work that he did on costume and set design in London from 1916 to 1919 with the Ballet Russe. The company will be performing three new ballets on 2 March that have been based around the themes of the new Picasso exhibition, alongside a performance of David Dawson’s ‘Faun(e)’. Visitors to the Tate Britain during this week will also be able to see the ballet company undertaking their normal rehearsal routine, as they prepare for performances of  The Rite of Spring and Firebird later in the year. 

The exhibition space will be open from 10am until 6pm 6 days a week, with late openings until 10pm on Fridays, and tickets are £14 (or £12.20 for concessions) -  I would recommend booking as soon as you can if you want to go, as tickets for these once-in-a-lifetime exhibitions tend to get snapped up very quickly. This new Picassso retrospective has been devised by James Beechey with additional contributions from Professor Christopher Green (Courtauld) and Richard Humphreys. It is curated at Tate Britain by Chris Stephens, Curator (Modern British Art) & Head of Displays, Tate Britain, assisted by Helen Little, Assistant Curator, Tate Britain. BP4F94CH5T7N