Visitors can experience the art scenes of Barcelona, Berlin and Paris at the beginning of the 20th century through three new loans coming to the National Gallery from the start of August.
In Room 45, our collection of works by Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas and George Bellows will be enriched by two exceptional loans: a stunning painting by the American artist Marsden Hartley (1877–1943), and the only Blue Period work by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) currently on display in a London museum.
In 1913 American-born Hartley moved to Berlin, known for its experimental art scene. During his years in the city he painted his 'Amerika' series, of which Painting No. 50 (1914–15) is a part. While there, Hartley worked and exhibited alongside Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group, and 'Painting No. 50', an early abstract painting, shows the influence of their avant-garde ideas. The work is coming to the National Gallery as part of the Terra Collection-in-Residence programme, and will hang in the same room as Men of the Docks (1912), the first major American painting to enter the Gallery’s collection when it was acquired in 2014. Visitors wanting to learn more about The Blue Rider group will be able to see more of their works in German Expressionism: Modern Painting 1900–1918, which will be presented at the National Gallery in March 2027.
Hartley’s avant-garde masterpiece will be joined by two new loans from the Kenneth C. Griffin Collection. Picasso’s Portrait of Germaine, a stunning example of the artist’s Blue Period, was painted in 1902 when Picasso was living in Barcelona. It depicts Germaine Pichot (born Laure Gargallo, 1881–1948), a French laundress and artist’s model. Waterlilies (1905) completes a group of four of Monet’s 'Water-Lily' works, created between 1899 and the artist’s final years. The picture will hang in Room 46, the final room of the National Gallery’s collection, entirely devoted to late Monet.
Whether visiting after work, beginning an evening out before the theatre, or winding down after a day exploring the city, visitors will be able to view these works for even longer thanks to National Gallery Summertime. From 3 July until 31 August, the Gallery will remain open until 7pm daily, with late opening on Fridays until 9pm, giving visitors more time to enjoy one of the greatest collections of paintings under one roof.
A Feast for the Senses. The exhibition «A Rush of Colour» invites you to discover the world of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in all its luminous facets, and in doing so, to explore the very essence of colour itself.
Kirchner's painting is a declaration of his commitment to colour: luminous, expressive, and full of energy. His works lead us from the intense contrasts of his Berlin years to the vibrant, almost abstract colour harmonies of his time in Davos. Colour becomes a medium for emotion, an expression of perception and a feeling for life.
But «A Rush of Colour» does not remain in the artist's studio. Through fascinating experiments and interactive stations, you can experience how colour is actually created – through the refraction, reflection, and absorption of light, and through the interplay between the eye and the brain. Colours change, disappear, and reappear; the sky shifts its shade of blue. It becomes clear that colour is not a fixed object, but the result of complex processes involving light, material, and perception.
In this way, the exhibition combines art and science, intuition and insight, to create a complete sensory experience – inspiring for adults, exciting for children, and ideal for the whole family.
«A Rush of Colour» – an exhibition that lets us see Kirchner's work anew and turns colour itself into an experience.
Biography
Studio J. Samhaber, Aschaffenburg, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1881/82, Estate of Eberhard W. Kornfeld, Bern
Maria and Ernst Kirchner lived in Aschaffenburg in Bavaria when their son Ernst Ludwig was born on 6 May 1880. He was an attentive boy, spending a lot of time at the window of his room watching the train station opposite. As a young child he observed his immediate environment closely: the buildings around him, the busy activity at the station and the people on the street fascinated him. He captured all of these impressions on paper in – sometimes coloured – pencil.
From college studies to artistic freedom
Photographer unknown, Walter, Maria, Ernst, Ulrich, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, circa 1902, Estate of Eberhard W. Kornfeld, Bern
Kirchner’s intense desire to become a painter was met with tepid enthusiasm by his parents. His father in particular wished a socially more accepted profession for his son. Consequently, Kirchner agreed on a compromise that was not entirely unfavourable for him: after passing his school-leaving examination he began to study architecture at the university in Dresden, but attended primarily artistic courses such as freehand and life drawing or composition. Kirchner completed his first works there and in many aspects his studies determined his future path. They provided him not just with fundamental artistic training, but also allowed him to receive financial support from his family, therefore permitting him the freedom to intensively commit himself to art. Kirchner enjoyed the student life, meeting with friends, making trips to the Moritzburg Lakes and working out new artistic modes of expression with other young students. The founding of the artists’ group Die Brücke (The Bridge) in 1905, together with his fellow students Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, opened a path to the art world. He networked with other artists, visited museums and exhibitions, and caroused in bars and cafés with his artist friends at night. One evening he met his first girlfriend, Doris Große, known as “Dodo”. She worked as a milliner by day and as a model at night, appearing in numerous works by Kirchner from this period.
The life of a bohemian
Erna Kirchner (Schilling) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in Berlin-Wilmersdorf Atelier, Durlacher Strasse 14, c. 1912/1914, Kirchner Museum Davos, Gift of the Estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1992
Kirchner fashioned his life as an artist entirely according to his own ideas. He was “anti-bourgeoise” and lived free from social conventions, following the tenets of the new Lebensreform (social reform) movement. On his trips he celebrated an imagined primordial life and strove for the unity of human and nature. This search was sometimes carried out with the canoe, sometimes with a bow and arrow or a boomerang – and almost always stark naked.
“Each piece of furniture, each carpet had been made by him. When you entered his room, you felt as though you were on another planet or in another distant century.”
For his life as a bohemian Kirchner required the appropriate spaces. His studios in Dresden and in Berlin were at the same time workspaces, ateliers in which to stage an artistic life and cosy places of retreat. Surrounded by paintings, drawings and sketches, by textiles and furniture that he had designed himself and by his sculptures, here Kirchner met with his friends. For a brief time Kirchner attempted to earn his living as a teacher, founding the MUIM Institute in Berlin together with Max Pechstein. But with only two students the academy was not a success. By contrast, as a painter Kirchner was successful, initially with the group Die Brücke and later, after its disbandment in 1913, as a solo artist, making the acquaintance of important friends and supporters.
In search of paradise
Erna Schilling Sitting on Stones on the Coast, Fehmarn, Summer 1913, Kirchner Museum Davos, Gift of the Estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1992
Kirchner was fascinated by the world of dance, in particular by the variety theatre. One evening he met the sisters Gerda und Erna Schilling, the latter becoming his partner and accompanying him for the rest of his life. Yet Kirchner was young and internally restless, driven by a constant search, by a yearning for naturalness and authenticity, for a place of longing. He found this place on the island of Fehmarn. The rough Baltic Sea with its breakers and the island with its steep cliffs enthralled him. Just like when he was a child, he recorded the life around him. People bathing in the sea, children playing on the beach, the singular nature of Fehmarn, which almost became a jungle in Kirchner’s work. He visited the island a total of four time, always with others. Sometimes with the siblings Hans and Emy Frisch – from the latter he learned the technique of photography; sometimes with Heckel and his girlfriend, the dancer Sidi Riha. But mostly with Erna, spending a charming summer in an attic room in the Staberhuk lighthouse with the Lüthmann family.
An invisible emotional pain
Self-Portrait as a Soldier in the Berlin-Friedenau Studio, Körnerstrasse 45, 1915, Kirchner Museum Davos, Gift of the Estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1992
Yet even this paradise could not keep away the outbreak of World War I or drive away the dark clouds that lay over Kirchner’s emotional state. He increasingly suffered from nervous anxiety attacks and indulged in excessive alcohol consumption. In search of a solution he feverishly looked for a way to survive the war. By volunteering for the army he hoped to at least be able to choose himself which branch of the armed services, but was instead assigned to a field artillery regiment in Halle an der Saale. Although he initially depicted himself as a soldier in his studio, he increasingly chafed under the military discipline and eventually suffered a nervous breakdown. Leave of absence from military service, however, did not mean for Kirchner the end of his suffering, but the beginning of a years-long journey through various sanatoriums, different diagnoses and an intensive struggle with his health.
“The high altitudes are good for my hands. It is almost like a liberation.”
View Looking South to the Tinzenhorn from Kirchner’s Summer Cabin on the Stafelalp, c. 1919, Kirchner Museum Davos, Gift of the Estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1992
But how did Kirchner arrive in Davos? Following the recommendation of a friend he travelled to the mountain village in January 1917. But at the beginning of February he hastily returned to Berlin. It was simply too cold for him in the Grisons canton. Yet this brief stay in the Swiss mountains seemed to have sparked something in him – an inspiration that motivated him to undertake a new trip in May. The state of his health was fearful. Along with addiction to medications, he suffered from paralysis of the limbs and impaired consciousness. Together with his nurse Hedwig, he spent the Swiss summer on the Stafelalp mountain in the Rüesch hut, doing what he always did in such magnificent settings. He recorded his environment in drawings that depicted his fascination for the mountain world and for the simple life of the farmers. Kirchner quickly recognised that Davos was his future. It began in the house known as “In den Lärchen” (In the Larch Trees).
“Today the desire for the carpet was so great, that E. brought it to me and now I am lying on it. How beautiful it is.”
Herd of Cows on the Alp, 1919/29, Kirchner Museum Davos, Gift of the Estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1992
In order to feel at home in his new surroundings, at the beginning of 1919 he had the first of his things transported from Berlin to Davos. These included his beloved printing press and his self-made carpets, which he urgently needed in order to feel well. The hut on the Stafelalp remained his cherished summer residence. Kirchner spent the sun-warmed months here among flowering meadows, grazing cows and the life of the cowherds.
“It’s only here that you can learn the value of individual colours”.
View of the Wildbodenhaus, nach/after 1924, Kirchner Museum Davos, Gift of the Estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 2001
His last home was the Haus auf dem Wildboden, to which he moved in October 1923 and where he set up his sculpture studio outside. The years in Davos were marked by a fervent drive to create and his will to express himself artistically, producing not just paintings and prints, but also photographs, drawings, textiles and sculptures. In the mountains Kirchner discovered an unconditional freedom that noticeably improved his health and which is reflected in his works in new stylistic forms.
Modern urban life in miniature
Barn Dance on the Upper Floor of the House «In den Lärchen» with Self-Portrait at the Left, 1919/1920, Kirchner Museum Davos, Gift of the Estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 2001
One could naturally assume that as an idiosyncratic artist Kirchner retreated to his mountain hut, accompanied only by Erna, his studio decorations and nature. Yet, on the contrary, he lived as a surprisingly social person. He sought out contact with other artists, gallerists, museums and collectors almost aggressively. He was visited by members of his family and by young artists such as Hermann Scherer, Albert Müller and Paul Camenisch, who worked with him and learned from him. In addition, in the Wildboden area he was the only person to own a gramophone and organised merry dance evenings in his home for his neighbours, events that recall his love for the variety theatre. This is also apparent in his close relationship with the Zurich dancer Nina Hard (Engelhardt), who spent the summer at his house and sat as a model for numerous pictures. Another woman likewise became an important figure for his artistic expression: in 1921 he met the weaver Lise Gujer, who in the following years created striking tapestries according to his designs. Life in the Swiss mountains seemed to benefit Kirchner.
“How is this to end? One feels that the decision is in the air and everything is going haywire.”
Self-Portrait in front of the Wildbodenhaus, after 1935, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archiv, Wichtrach/Bern
Yet this apparent idyll was clouded by a shadow. Kirchner was afraid: German cultural policies and the rise to power of the Nazis worried him. This affected his health primarily, the panic attacks returned and he resorted again to medications containing morphine. This was a period of retreat – Kirchner focused now on Switzerland above all, strove to strengthen professional contacts, but could not evade world politics. While his first exhibition in the United States was held in 1937, the Nazis removed 770 of his works from museums in Germany. Kirchner was torn by fears. He dreaded an invasion of German troops in the Grisons and impulsively destroyed many of his printing blocks and sculptures. It seems as though he saw a small sliver of hope when, on 10 May 1938, he submitted to the Davos authorities an application to marry Erna, but he withdrew it shortly afterwards. On 15 June he shot himself near his home on the Wildboden. His grave can still be seen today in the Waldfriedhof cemetery in Davos.
IMAGES
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), «Tanzende Mädchen in farbigen Strahlen» (Dancing Girls in Co
Portrait of the Painter, 1925, Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm, Kirchner Museum Davos, Gift of the Estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1990
Sitzende Dame (Erna Kirchner), 1926, Öl auf Leinwand, 120 x 90 cm, Kirchner Museum Davos, Schenkung Familienstiftung Benvenuta 1996
Kopf Erna, 1917, Öl auf Leinwand, 70,5 x 60,5 cm, Kirchner Museum Davos, Schenkung Stiftung Baumgart-Möller 2000
This summer, the High Museum of Art will present “Paper Trees” (July 31, 2026-Feb. 21, 2027), an exhibition that ponders the role and presence of trees in American art from the 19th century to the present. Featuring nearly 50 prints, drawings and sculptures from the High’s collection as well as loans from the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking and Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, the exhibition will trace different schools of thought in the depiction and representation of landscape and the natural world.
“By bringing these works together, we invite audiences to consider how artists have helped inspire reverence for nature, using the tree as a beautiful symbol of life,” said Rand Suffolk, director of the High.
In addition to a core selection of 19th- and 20th-century prints and works on paper from the High’s American collection, the exhibition will feature modern and contemporary works from across the museum’s collecting areas, including folk and self-taught art and decorative arts and design. Together, the artworks forefront the tree as the primary visual vehicle for the study of nature, from unfinished sketches made en plein air (drawn from life in nature rather than in a studio environment) to finished works made of or after trees as material and metaphor.
“The exhibition is an artist-driven exploration of the relationship between the visual arts and the natural world. While organized around the idea of the tree study, each artwork widens our understanding of the genre and emphasizes artistic practice and technique across multiple schools of art,” said Anni Pullagura, the High’s Margaret and Terry Stent associate curator of American art. “We’re particularly thrilled to be able to present rarely seen objects from the museum’s holdings of American works on paper, and to see these artworks in dialogue with root sculptures and woodturning, showing the multiple ways that trees and treelife continue to inspire artistic practice today.”
Exhibition Organization and Support “Paper Trees” is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Images
The Ashepoo Swamp
Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (American, born Charleston, South Carolina, 1876–1958), TheAshepooSwamp, early twentieth century, watercolor on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, J. J. Haverty Collection, 25.2.
The Oak and the Adobe
Ernest Haskell (American, born Woodstock, Connecticut, 1876–1925), The Oak andtheAdobe, 1919, etching on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 58.89.
Restless Leaves Vase
Made by Michelle Holzapfel (American, born Woonsocket, Rhode Island, 1951), Restless LeavesVase, 1988, cherry burl, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Martha and Pat Connell, 2014.407.
Donut Form
Made by Edward Allen Moulthrop (American, born Rochester, New York, 1916–2003), DonutForm, undated, orangewood, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Martha and Pat Connell, 2014.397.
Joseph Stella (American, born Muro Lucano, Italy, 1877–1946), Untitled (Tree Trunk), ca. 1910, etching on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Carl and Marian Mullis, 1995.158.
The Spice Bush
Albert Barker (American, born Chicago, Illinois, 1874–1947), TheSpiceBush, 1931, lithograph on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Carl and Marian Mullis, 1994.163.
Beyond the Elm
Luigi Lucioni (American, born Malnate, Italy, 1900–1988), BeyondtheElm, ca. 1944, etching on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from the Lawrence and Alfred Fox Foundation for the Ralph K. Uhry Collection, 1991.189.
“Edge of the Pines,” Fla.
Walter Ronald Locke (American, born Winchester, Massachusetts, 1883–1983), “EdgeofthePines,” Fla., 1938, etching on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from the Lawrence and Alfred Fox Foundation for the Ralph K. Uhry Collection, 1991.183.
Large Oak Tree
William Thomas Livesay (American, born Richmond, Virginia, 1956), LargeOakTree, 1985, etching, engraving, and watercolor on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Katherine and Richard B. Jones, 1986.69.
Solitude
Mary Nimmo Moran (American, born Strathaven, Scotland, 1842–1899), Solitude, 1880, etching on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Barry Blumberg, 1985.294.
Island Pine #1
Franklin T. Wood (American, born Hyde Park, Massachusetts, 1887–1945), IslandPine#1, undated, etching on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Kent Hofmann in memory of Betty and Paul Hofmann, 1985.254.
A Woodland Pasture
Robert Swain Gifford (American, born Naushon Island, Massachusetts, 1840–1905), A Woodland Pasture, 1888, etching on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with Stratton Industries Fund, 1985.124.
Solitude (Peck’s Beach)
Edith Loring Pierce Getchell (American, born Bristol, Pennsylvania, 1855–1940), Solitude(Peck’sBeach), 1884, etching on parchment paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with Stratton Industries Fund, 1984.103.
Sweet is the Hour of Rest
Henry Farrer (American, born London, England, 1844–1903), SweetistheHourofRest, 1877–1885, etching on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the Stratton Industries Collection, 1980.10.
Hemlock at Kauterskill Clove
Aaron Draper Shattuck (American, born Francestown, New Hampshire, 1832–1928), HemlockatKauterskillClove, 1856, pencil on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase, 72.48.
Woods
William Trost Richards (American, born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1833–1905), Woods, 1865, charcoal and white chalk on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with Charles E. Merrill Trust Fund given in memory of Brigadier General William L. Plummer, 72.16.
Study of a Tree
Charles Demuth (American, born Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1883–1935), StudyofaTree, ca. 1916, watercolor on paper, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase, 67.16.
Fillette dans un fauteuil bleu [Enfant dans le salon bleu], 1878, Huile sur toile, 89,5 ×
129,8 cm, Washington, The National Gallery of Art, Collection de Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1983.1.18, Image
C
To mark the centenary of the artist’s death, the Musée d’Orsay is organizing a major exhibition dedicated to Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) in 2026, in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This is a highly anticipated event in France; national museums have never before dedicated a major exhibition to Mary Cassatt, an active member and key pillar of the Impressionist group. Her centenary offers an opportunity to examine the central role of this pre-eminent artist, who—through talent and determination—forged a unique identity in the art history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Mary Cassatt described herself as "American—distinctly and frankly American"—yet she initially rooted her art in the pictorial tradition of the Old Masters, studied during her travels in Europe, before becoming a pivotal figure in the Impressionist movement in France, where she lived for no fewer than six decades. "I am independent!" she proclaimed. "I can live alone and I love to work." Adopting a chrono-thematic approach, the exhibition presents a fresh portrait of the artist, examining her work through the lens of independence—a quality she took great pride in and upheld as her guiding principle throughout her life.
Her activities within the art market represent another fundamental aspect of the artist’s independence. She specialized in painting "mothers with children"—a genre in high demand in which she excelled and with which she remains associated—while also fulfilling portrait commissions. Key works in the exhibition also highlight her crucial role as an advisor, guiding American family, friends, and acquaintances in their purchases of paintings—particularly Impressionist works—and thus in the formation of art collections in the United States.
Featuring nearly 80 paintings, pastels, and prints, and spanning the artist’s entire career, *Mary Cassatt: An Independent* opens up new perspectives on her work by drawing on previously unpublished letters and untapped sources. The exhibition presents rarely seen works from European public and private collections, alongside paintings and pastels from American collections that are seldom exhibited outside the United States.
A selection of Cassatt’s early works and portraits of her loved ones reveals how the artist’s social background, her travels, and her knowledge of art history shaped her approach and practice. Determined to maintain her independence—initially at the behest of her wealthy family—she quickly established her own studio and hired paid models. In a predominantly male milieu, and against a backdrop of latent nationalism, she soon succeeded in establishing herself as a professional painter. Her depictions of elegant young women navigating social life—receiving guests at home or enjoying the theater, all while conquering the modern world and their own independence—rank among the artist’s most remarkable achievements, as evidenced by a number of dazzling examples. These bold, spirited images inevitably drew attention at the Impressionist exhibitions, in which Mary Cassatt participated regularly—four times, starting in 1879—at the invitation of her friend Edgar Degas. Mary Cassatt’s vital contribution to these avant-garde exhibitions, which billed themselves as "independent," will be examined and re-evaluated.
At this stage of her career, in the early 1890s, Mary Cassatt’s financial independence enabled her to become a property owner. Set within extensive grounds, the château she acquired in the Oise region served as the backdrop for numerous outdoor scenes featuring women and children—works characterized by their luminosity and vibrant colors. *Modern Woman*—the most significant commission the artist ever received, a monumental mural for the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago—marked a career highlight and a major milestone in her body of work. This colossal mural, now lost, is represented in the exhibition through a selection of related prints and pastels, as well as a film presenting a digital reconstruction of the gigantic piece (4 x 18 meters)—a work of unique ambition in both scale and subject matter. Her remarkable series of prints, the "Ten Color Prints," is also examined in the context of this new, highly experimental phase of her work and her progressive views on women’s education.
Indeed, Mary Cassatt’s commitment to independence extended well beyond her own career path and artistic practice. A staunch supporter of the women's suffrage movement, Cassatt urged her contemporaries to "work for suffrage, for it is women who will decide the question of a nation’s life or death." In 1915, she and her friend Louisine Havemeyer organized an exhibition in New York to benefit the women's suffrage cause. A select group of Mary Cassatt’s paintings from that exhibition concludes the show, demonstrating how both the art and the actions of this pioneering artist moved toward activism.
Exhibition organized by the Musée d’Orsay,
the National Portrait Gallery (London), and the
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston).
CURATORS
PARIS
Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Curator of Graphic Arts and Painting, Musée d’Orsay
Anne Robbins, Curator of Painting, Musée d’Orsay
LONDON
Sarah Moulden, Senior Curator of 19th-Century Collections, National Portrait Gallery
BOSTON
Erica Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museo Picasso Málagais presenting Munch-Picasso, an exhibition which, for the first time, proposesa dialogue between the Norwegian Edvard Munch (1863–1944) and the Malaga-born Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). It explores how both paved the way for modern art through a unique combination of experimentation and the expression of their personal obsessions and emotions.
The exhibition brings togethermore than a hundred works, including paintings, prints and drawings, revealing the mutual influences, numerous thematic affinities and shared concerns that underlie the multiple artistic practices of these two masters, exploring to what extent their radical creation shaped the way we perceive the world today.
Curated by art historian Paloma Alarcó,Munch - Picassohas been made possible through the special collaboration of the Munchmuseet, Oslo, and the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso (FABA), as well as the sponsorship of Fundación Unicaja and features significant loans from leading international museums such as the Albertina Museum, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Museu Picasso, Barcelona, and the Musée national Picasso Paris, the Nasjonalmuseet of Oslo, Tate,and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), among others.
Edvard Munch (1863–1944) and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), two of the most influential figures in the development of modern art, come together at the Museo Picasso Málaga through a selection of around one hundred paintings, drawings and prints. Together, these works will offer visitors the opportunity to explore the affinities running through their respective careers and reveal how both artists transformed the artistic language by making emotional experience central to the creative process.
Without proposing a relationship based on direct influence, the exhibition will explore the shared themes and concerns that shaped the work of these two creators: love and desire, illness, life and death, loneliness and existential angst. The female figure occupies a central place in this symbolic universe. Admired and desired, women also appear as complex and ambiguous presences, reflecting the emotional and psychological tensions that marked the imagination of both artists.
Another area of particular interest will be modern life and its social settings—cafés, cabarets, and bohemian circles—which served as spaces for both Munch and Picasso to experiment and observe, constructing a new vision of the contemporary individual. Similarly, in the sections devoted to the nude body, the dialogue between the works of Munch and Picasso offers a new perspective on the scope of their radical artistic vision, which decisively contributed to redefining modern art and shaping our understanding of the world.
According to the exhibition’s curator, Paloma Alarcó, Munch-Picasso “tells the story of an imaginary encounter between the two artists and explores impossible dialogues between two disparate figures who never met. They belonged to different generations and countries, had divergent artistic strategies and sensibilities as well as opposite ways of exploring painting, yet they shared a similar obsession with life’s deepest mysteries, as well as common interests throughout their prolific careers." An art historian and exhibition curator, Paloma Alarcó is a member of the programming committee, the Executive Council, and the Board of Trustees of the Museo Picasso Málaga. For more than three decades, and until May 2026, she was chief curator of modern painting at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, where she led research projects and curated major exhibitions.
Munch-Picasso benefits from the special collaboration of the Munchmuseet Oslo and the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso (FABA), as well as the sponsorship of Fundación Unicaja.
As its collection expands into the 20th century and beyond, the National Gallery stages its first exhibition of modern paintings from Germany – and its first devoted to an artistic movement after 1900.
Following its run in London in spring 2027, the exhibition will travel to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin and opens in autumn 2027.
German Expressionism: Modern Painting 1900–1918 is the first exhibition in the UK and Ireland since the 1960s to chart the work of both of the movement’s pivotal groups Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) – who were active from 1900 until the end of the First World War. Made up of radical, freethinking artists working across Berlin, Dresden, Munich and elsewhere, these collectives experimented with form and brushwork to break new ground in 20th-century painting.
With loans from some of Germany’s most prestigious modern art collections, such as Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie and Brücke Museum and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, the exhibition explores an alternative history of Modernism, to the predominantly French focus of the National Gallery’s current post-1800 collection.
While the featured artists Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), Gabriele Münter (1877–1962), Franz Marc (1880–1916) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), worked across many media, the exhibition celebrates the remarkable achievements of these artists in painting – the electrifying colours, energetic brushstrokes, and formal fragmentation that opened the doors to Abstraction.
Working in parallel in different regions of Germany, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter sought to free painting from naturalistic constraints and express an intensity of individual experience on the canvas.
Die Brücke was formed in Dresden by a group of young, self-taught artists including Kirchner, Erich Heckel (18831–970) and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976). Rebelling against conservative social codes, they lived and worked together in the bohemian corners of Dresden before moving to Berlin’s rapidly modernising centre. Die Brücke painted with an eruptive emotional force; colour became a live current and a deliberate defiance of academic traditions and brushwork, a form of liberation.
Der Blaue Reiter assembled in Munich around the close creative partnerships of painters Kandinsky and Münter, as well as Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) and Alexei Jawlensky (1864–1941). Kandinsky, Werefkin and Jawlensky were Russian émigrés drawn to Germany’s progressive art scene, where they cultivated a spiritual ethos of painterly expression. Joined by young artists like Marc and August Macke (1887–1914), they divided their time between metropolitan Munich and the luminous landscape around rural Murnau, where the lakes and mountains fed their bold, folkloric colours and semi-abstracted use of forms.
The outbreak of the First World War curbed the utopian ideals of Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, as artists fled Germany or were drafted into the military. While their charged and distorted style ensured a strong legacy in 20th-century art, their work remains under-represented in British and Irish collections. 'German Expressionism: Modern Painting 1900–1918' gathers over fifty international loans, rarely seen in the UK and Ireland, to give a comprehensive introduction to this transformative moment in modern painting.
Pictures come from private collections and museums worldwide including the National Gallery of Ireland; National Galleries of Scotland; Tate; The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum Wiesbaden; Kunstpalast Dusseldorf; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Leicester Museum and Art Gallery; Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and Allen Memorial Art Museum.
Sean Rainbird, co-curator, says: ‘A critic first used the term ‘Expressionism’ before the First World War to describe modern painting from France and Germany. He also predicted the term would, in the future, be most closely associated with art from Germany. There were several pre-eminent individual Expressionist artists from Germany and Austria, but some of the best known belonged to two now-famous groups. This exhibition is the first time for many decades that both – called the Brücke and Blue Rider – have been combined for an exhibition in Britain and Ireland. It offers a unique opportunity for visitors to experience the artists' bold colours, formal innovations, spiritual aspirations and strength of individual expression, boldly extending the current parameters of the National Gallery’s displays into the early 20th century.’
Daniel F. Herrmann, co-curator, says: ‘The early 20th century became a crucible for new ways of seeing the world. Modern life brought the rise of modern painting, created by visionary artists who upended old rules with an urgency and defiance that still inspires painters today. Snuffed out by the First World War and rarely seen in Britain, German Expressionism was a daring chapter in the history of art. We can't wait to introduce this important moment in painting to our visitors in London and Dublin.’
Dr Caroline Campbell, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, says: ‘We are delighted to embark on this new partnership with the National Gallery, London, as we work together to present a thoughtful exploration of German Expressionism across our islands. Our partnership offers an important opportunity to share our collections and expertise, broaden perspectives, and deepen public engagement with a dynamic artistic moment that resonates across the generations. We look forward to welcoming audiences to the exhibition and thank our colleagues in the Irish Government and UK Government for their support through the UK-Ireland Cultural Co-Operation Programme.’
The exhibition is at the National Gallery, London (20 March – 1 August 2027) and the National Gallery of Ireland (9 September 2027 – 9 January 2028).
The curators are Sean Rainbird, a British art historian and former director of the National Gallery of Ireland and Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; and Daniel F. Herrmann, Ardalan Curator of Modern and Contemporary Projects at the National Gallery.
IMAGES
Max Pechstein 1881 – 1955
The Yellow and Black Jersey. 1910
Oil on canvas
68.9 x 78 cm
Brücke-Museum, long term loan from a Private Collection (DL 1990/2)
