Modigliani
Tate Modern, 23th November to 2nd April 2018Arnold Bennett wrote in 1919 that Modigliani’s portraits “have a suspicious resemblance to masterpieces,” but many more of his contemporaries were scandalised by his sensual nudes. This comprehensive survey of his career— from his curvaceous, elongated and almond-eyed women to his distinctive portraits and experimental sculpture— offers a timely opportunity for reappraisal. Born in 1884 in Italy, it was in Paris that he made his career. Penniless but never less than elegant, he forged his own style apart from the movements—cubism, surrealism, expressionism—that marked his era. Today an auction house star—his luxuriant Nu couché sold for £113m in 2015—this show sets out to define his place in art history.
Ages of Wonder: Scotland’s Art 1540 to Now
Royal Scottish Academy, 4th November to 7th January 2018In 1910 the Royal Scottish Academy gifted the National Gallery of Scotland a significant proportion of its art collection. Now the NGS is lending 60 of these works, to rejoin other RSA masterpieces, by artists from the Italian 16th-century painter, Jacopo Bassano, William Dyce (above) to sculptor Kenny Hunter.
Surrealism in Egypt: Art et Liberté 1938-1948
Tate Liverpool, 17th November to 18th March 2018On 22nd December 1938, a radical collective of artists and writers based in Cairo published their founding manifesto, Long Live Degenerate Art. Inspired by the European modernists whose work was denounced by Hitler, Art et Liberté continued the cultural debate throughout the war and championed the evolution of a distinctive local variant of surrealism.
