Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting

National Portrait Gallery- London

12 February – 3 May 2026

NPG 7196 Bella in her Pluto T-Shirt (unsigned trial proof without face), 1995 © The Lucian Freud Archive. All Rights Reserved [2025] / Bridgeman Images

NPG 7195 Bella in her Pluto T-Shirt (etching), 1995 © The Lucian Freud Archive. All Rights Reserved [2025] / Bridgeman Images. Collection: National Portrait Gallery

Ahead of a major exhibition in 2026, the National Portrait Gallery has today announced the acquisition of 12 new works from the estate of Lucian Freud, one of Britain’s greatest portrait artists. Among these are 8 etchings, including a trial proof, which are the first of their medium by Freud to enter the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection. A curated selection of these newly acquired works will be exhibited at the NPG from today as part of a free display that explores Freud’s working practice and dedication to portraiture. 

Archive research will also inform a major new 2026 exhibition, Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting (12 February – 3 May 2026), which will include some of these previously unseen materials.

One of the newly acquired etchings, which depicts the artist’s daughter, Bella Freud, will feature in the new exhibition, the first of the National Portrait Gallery 2026 programme. Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting will explore the artist’s lifelong preoccupation with the human face and figure from the 1930s to the early twenty-first century, focusing on Freud’s mastery of drawing in all its forms – from pencil, pen, and ink to charcoal and etching. In addition, a carefully selected group of important paintings will reveal the dynamic dialogue between his practice on paper and on canvas. Opening on 12 February 2026, tickets will go on sale this autumn.

Ahead of this, Bella in her Pluto T-Shirt (etching) and other new acquisitions – including an unsigned trial proof of the sitter, without face, and a preparatory sketch of the work – are exhibited as part of a reconfigured Collections display in gallery 26, titled The Making of an Artist: The Lucian Freud Archive. This archive display illustrates Freud’s creative process, with works exhibited side by side to demonstrate specifically how the artist reworked the face of his sitter in the final print. Other highlights include previously unseen sketchbooks and childhood drawings; the artist’s etching tools; and two artworks by Freud’s father, Ernst Freud.

The National Portrait Gallery acquired the archive of Lucian Freud in 2015, and – since its reopening in 2023 – has displayed the artist’s childhood drawings, letters and sketchbooks. This reconfigured display, which opens today, focuses on Freud’s life, artistic techniques and processes, with a particular emphasis his etching prints, plates and unsigned trial proofs.

“My father spent a long time working on Bella in her Pluto T-shirt, and he reworked my face several times before finalising the etching – it was really unusual for that to happen. And it was quite interesting, in a way, to see that not everything came out right, and how to deal with something when it doesn’t. Sometimes he would ‘scrap’ something, as he called it, and then start again. And this time he just didn’t… Eventually, it was good. I think that’s been a very useful lesson in my work and my life. You don’t give up: you look for a way to see how things can work and then something will come if you’re in that mindset.”
Bella Freud
Fashion designer and daughter of Lucian Freud

“The Lucian Freud Archive at the National Portrait Gallery is an incredible resource that helps us share unique insights into the artist’s working practice, from his childhood drawings to later sketchbooks. Ahead of next year’s major exhibition, which will focus on Freud’s skill as a draughtsman across many mediums, this free archive display in gallery 26 will delve into the ways in which he worked as a printmaker, displaying his tools and trial proofs alongside new etchings – the first to enter the NPG’s Collection. We’re delighted the Arts Council has supported the NPG in allocating the etchings and archive material to us.”
Carys Lewis
Archivist, National Portrait Gallery

“Over the course of his career, Lucian Freud developed a fondness for the National Portrait Gallery, working with us in the lead up to 2012 to produce the last major retrospective conceived in his lifetime. Partly in recognition of this relationship, the NPG is home to the artist’s rich and extensive archive, which has been at the heart of the research for this upcoming exhibition, Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting. This is the first museum exhibition in this country to focus on the artist’s works on paper. I look forward to sharing some of the fascinating and rarely exhibited archive material alongside important national and international loans when the exhibition opens in 2026.”
Sarah Howgate
Senior Curator Contemporary Collections, National Portrait Gallery

 

Kirchner x Kirchner

 Kunstmuseum Bern

12.9.2025-11.1.2026

A major work by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Sonntag der Bergbauern (Sunday of the Mountain Farmers), is about to leave the Federal Chancellery in Berlin. The painting is known to a wide public because almost every evening it has been visible on the television news in the background of the German government’s Cabinet sessions. Exceptionally, it is now being allowed to leave its customary place, to appear as a guest in the Kunstmuseum Bern. For the first time since its joint exhibition with its pendant, Alpsonntag. Szene am Brunnen (Alp Sunday. The Scene at the Well) in 1933, the two paintings will be shown together, reunited, in the autumn exhibition Kirchner x Kirchner in the Kunstmuseum Bern, where they will form the sensational highlight of the exhibition.Kirchner x Kirchner: A homage to Kirchner’s biggest retrospective in 1933.

Between 12 September 2025 and 11 January 2026, the Kunstmuseum Bern is showing the exhibition Kirchner x Kirchner. It features around 65 top-class works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) which are rarely shown in Switzerland. The artist is considered as one of the most outstanding protagonists of modern art. With this exhibition, the Kunstmuseum Bern is recalling the largest retrospective in the artist’s lifetime, held in the Kunsthalle Bern in 1933 and curated by the artist himself.

Kirchner’s monumental pair of paintings reunited as a highlight of the Kirchner x Kirchner exhibition thanks to a sensational loan from Berlin.
One particularly highlight of the 1933 exhibition was the presentation of the monumental pair of paintings Sonntag der Bergbauern (Sunday of the Mountain Farmers) and Alpsonntag. Szene am Brunnen (Alp Sunday. The Scene at the Well). They were hung in the entrance hall of the Kunsthalle, where they formed a dramatic introduction (see press image 03). The artist made these two works as a unit in the mid-1920s in Davos, where he had been recovering from service in the First World War since 1917, and both the landscape and the life of the mountain farmers inspired him to explore new motifs.

‘I also already have an idea for the exhibition. Both 4 m paintings should go in the entrance hall. The rear wall of the lantern light room is hung with 8 [eight] 75 x 150 formats. That provides a calm horizontal as an introduction, and when one looks through the door there are only the verticals of the portrait formats. A wonderful harmony on the right and left the big wooden figures of Adam and Eve.’ Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, letter to Max Huggler, former Director of Kunsthalle Bern, 21 December 1932.

Today it’s a genuine sensation that the Kunstmuseum Bern is able to show, reunited after more than 90 years, the two oil paintings Sonntag der Bergbauern (Sunday of the Mountain Farmers) (see press image 01) from the Cabinet Room of Berlin’s Federal Chancellery and its pendant Alpsonntag. Szene am Brunnen (Alp Sunday. The Scene at the Well) (press image 02) from its own collection.

‘The Federal Republic of Germany is doing the Kunstmuseum Bern a very great honour by exceptionally authorising the loan of this significant work by Kirchner. It makes us extremely happy that we are enabled in to show these two major works together again to the public for the first time, entirely as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner intended.’
Nina Zimmer, Director, Kunstmuseum Bern – Zentrum Paul Klee

‘That these two works, of central importance for Kirchner’s work and sense of himself as an artist can no be shown together again for the first time – fully in line with his original intention – fills me with great joy and deep gratitude.’
Nadine Franci, Curator of Prints & Drawings at Kunstmuseum Bern and Curator of the Exhibition.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Alpsonntag. Szene am Brunnen [Sunday in the Alps. Scene at the Well], 1923-24/ around 1929
Oil on canvas with original painted frame,
168 x 400 cm, Kunstmuseum Bern

© Kunstmuseum Bern

Alpsonntag. Szene am Brunnen (Alp Sunday. The Scene at the Well):
an exceptional acquisition for the collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern
After the 1933 exhibition the two works went their different ways. The Kunstmuseum Bern bought Alpsonntag. Szene am Brunnen (Alp Sunday. The Scene at the Well) (1923-24/around 1929) directly from the 1933 Kirchner exhibition thanks to donations and a generous accommodation by the author. This purchase by the Kunstmuseum Bern meant much more to Kirchner than mere financial support – it was an overdue symbolic recognition. Until then he had not been represented by a painting in a single Swiss museum collection. In Germany his works were gradually disappearing from exhibitions, and were banished to storage.

‘I have now had the painting bought by the Museum on Tuesday: Scene am Brunnen (The Scene at the Well), delivered without accident to the place in the Museum that they indicated. [....] Now it will presumably be hung, and will hopefully bring pleasure to many people, just as it brought me pleasure to depict this peaceful, healthy life of our mountain peasants in the midst of their landscape. To be able to do so, I spent summer in the Alps with them every year for 6 years.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Letter to Johann Conrad von Mandach, Director of the Kunstmuseum Bern (1920-1943), Davos Wildboden, 27.4.1933

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Sonntag der Bergbauern [Sunday of the Mountain Farmers], 1923-24/26
Oil on canvas, 170 x 400 cm
Federal Republic of Germany

© Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Sonntag der Bergbauern (Sunday of the Mountain Farmers):
a symbolic sign from the Federal Republic of Germany as reparation and for peace.
The journey of the counter-loan Sonntag der Bergbauern (Sunday of the Mountain Farmers) led from the artist’s estate to the Federal Chancellery in Germany. The German Expressionists already found their way into the new Chancellery in Bonn under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. As a sign of reparation for the defamation that had taken place under the Nazis, and as a sign of peace, he had offices in the building decorated with works by Expressionist artists in 1975. The artworks were loans from museums, from the Federation’s collection or from private collectors. Roman Norbert Ketterer, the administrator of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s estate, was friends with Helmut Schmidt, and entrusted him with the large-format painting Sonntag der Bergbauern (170 x 400 cm) as a permanent loan. Helmut Schmidt had it displayed to commanding effect in the Cabinet Room, in the so-called Chancellor’s Building of the Bonn Federal Chancellery. The painting was purchased by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1985.

When the new Federal Chancellery went into operation in Berlin in 2001, the painting moved with it, finding a prominent and symbolic place in the Cabinet Room of the Federal Government.

Since the 1970s the painting has been present as a background to television reports from the German government before Cabinet sessions, and has entered the collective consciousness in that way (press image 04). The juxtaposition of the two paintings brings to the fore once again that ‘image of calm and peace’ that Ernst Ludwig Kirchner already suggested in a letter to Nele van de Velde on 7 October 1921 – even before he started work on the painting. May it shine out upon our contemporary world.

03

Franz Henn

View of the Kirchner exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern with Alpsonntag. Szene am Brunnen (left) and Sonntag der Bergbauern (right), 1933.
Photography

© Erbengemeinschaft Eberhard W. Kornfeld

04

Cabinet room in the Federal Chancellery in Berlin with the painting Sonntag der Bergbauern by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in the background

© Bundesregierung / Guido Bergmann

05

Meret Oppenheim

Neue Sterne [New Stars], 1977-1982 Oil on canvas, 205 x 248,5 cm Kunstmuseum Bern, Legacy Meret Oppenheim

© 2025, ProLitteris Zürich

Press images

Current and upcoming exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Bern

Carol Rama. Rebel of Modernism

until 13.7.2025

Marisa Merz. Ascoltare lo spazio / Listen to the Space

until 17.8.2025

Kunstmuseum Bern of the Future. The Architectural Competition

until 28.9.2025

Collection Intervention by Amy Sillman

until 2.11.2025

Kirchner x Kirchner

12.9.25-11.1.26

Opening hours

Tuesday 10:00–20:00

Wednesday–Sunday 10:00–17:00

Monday closed

Contact

Anne-Cécile Foulon
Head of Communication & Marketing press@kunstmuseumbern.ch
+41 31 328 09 93

Accreditation for media representatives

Admission to all exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Bern is free for media representatives with a valid press card. Please fill in the digital accreditation form which you can either access via kunstmuseumbern.ch/en/press/media-accreditation or by screening the QR-Code before your visit.

From Paris to Provence: French Painting at the Barnes

The Barnes Foundation 

June 29–August 31, 2025

In summer 2025, the Barnes Foundation will present From Paris to Provence: French Painting at the Barnes, an exhibition featuring more than 50 iconic paintings from the first floor of the collection galleries by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, and other European artists. Curated by Cindy Kang, this exhibition reflects the expansion of the Barnes’s educational program, emphasizing the historical and cultural context of the works. On view in the Roberts Gallery from June 29 through August 31, 2025, From Paris to Provence: French Painting at the Barnes is sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal.

Charting a journey through France, this exhibition examines how place informed the work of modern painters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The exhibition begins in Paris and its suburbs, dynamic places that were at once semi-industrial, as in Van Gogh’s The Factory, and sites of blooming suburban leisure, as in Monet’s Madame Monet Embroidering. Life in and around Paris and the coastal regions of Normandy and Brittany inspired the radical brushwork, light palette, and contemporary subject matter of impressionists like Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, their mentor and friend Édouard Manet, and the post-impressionists. Several of these painters subsequently moved to the South of France, seeking the warmer climate and dazzling sunlight that intensified their colors.

From Paris to Provence: French Painting at the Barnes highlights Van Gogh’s time in Arles and Saint-Rémy—uniting, for the first time, several Van Gogh paintings from the Barnes collection on one wall—as well as Cézanne’s deep connection to his native Provence, with nearly 20 works depicting scenes from the countryside and his family home, the Jas de Bouffan. Finally, the exhibition returns to Paris to explore a new generation of painters who flocked there from across Europe—Amedeo Modigliani, Chaïm Soutine, Giorgio de Chirico, and Joan Miró—and reaffirmed the French capital’s place as the center of modern art.

Creating space for new conversations between works—a critical aspect of education, research, and public access—this exhibition will provide visitors a rare opportunity to temporarily experience these paintings in new contexts and juxtapositions. While this exhibition is on view, rooms 2 through 13 of the Barnes collection will be closed for a floor refinishing project. Following the exhibition, the paintings will return to their original locations in the galleries.

“Featuring a wide variety of works from the first-floor galleries, this exhibition emphasizes the historical and cultural context of the paintings and offers the extraordinary opportunity for visitors to encounter beloved French paintings from the Barnes collection in new conversations,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President.

“By seeing these works juxtaposed for the first time, visitors will discover how particular places—with their distinct landscapes, light, and people—shaped the work of each artist,” says Cindy Kang. “I hope this exhibition will inspire audiences to see these well-known paintings in a new light and with a renewed sense of appreciation and level of understanding.”

The exhibition will feature more than 50 major paintings from the first floor of the Barnes collection. Highlights include:

• Édouard Manet, Laundry (1875): In this canvas, a woman washes linen in a flower-filled garden in Paris. A child to her right, as if eager to help, tugs at the pail of suds. Washerwomen were popular figures in 19th-century art and literature. Manet’s good friend Émile Zola, for example, described their tough lives in his novels. But this depiction is idyllic. Flashes of white paint—offset by grays and blues—become sunlight on the drying fabric. After the jury of the French Salon, the annual state art exhibition, rejected this painting, Manet exhibited it independently.
• Claude Monet, The Studio Boat (1876): The figure in the boat is likely the artist, who outfitted this floating studio with all his supplies so that he could paint from the middle of the Seine River. Boating culture in Argenteuil, a suburb of Paris, inspired him to have this vessel constructed to his specifications. Often Monet would anchor his boat when working. But sometimes he painted as he drifted down the river, creating landscapes that are more a collection of momentary glimpses rather than a depiction of one specific spot.
• Vincent van Gogh, The Postman (Joseph Étienne-Roulin) (1889): Van Gogh probably met Joseph Étienne-Roulin, a postman at the Arles train station in the South of France, when the artist rented a room above the nearby Café de la Gare. The two shared similar left-leaning political views and became close friends; in fact, it was Roulin who cared for Van Gogh during his hospital stay in nearby Saint-Rémy. Van Gogh painted six portraits of Roulin between 1888 and 1889 as well as several of Roulin’s wife and children.
• Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire (1892–95): Mont Sainte-Victoire, which towers over the Aix-en-Provence region of southern France, was one of Cézanne’s favorite motifs. He spent his childhood exploring its terrain, and he painted it several dozen times from different vantage points. The mountain also held symbolic meaning to the artist, representing the ancient countryside during a moment of rapid industrialization and modernization. On the right side of the canvas, one can just make out an ancient Roman aqueduct.
• Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of the Red-Headed Woman (1918): Modigliani’s portrait of a woman who was part of his international, bohemian circles in Paris suggests how women’s lives had changed by the early 20th century. With her vivid hair and strapless dress, she drapes her shoulder over the chair and addresses the viewer with an unapologetic gaze. Her revealing dress shows how bold new fashions could represent a form of freedom. Modigliani used a thick round brush to describe the model’s flesh, and the textured surface seems to invite touch.

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Cindy Kang, PhD, is curator at the Barnes. She is a specialist in modern European art and particularly focuses on the relationship between painting and decorative arts in late 19th- and early 20th-century France. At the Barnes, she co-curated Matisse & Renoir: New Encounters at the Barnes (2024) and Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris (2023–24); curated Marie Cuttoli: The Modern Thread from Miró to Man Ray (2020); and served as managing curator for Berthe Morisot: Woman Impressionist (2018–19) and Renoir: Father and Son / Painting and Cinema (2018). Additionally, she commissioned the exhibition Water, Wind, Breath: Southwest Native Art in Community (2022) and co-led the institution’s land acknowledgment process. Kang previously held curatorial and research positions at the Frick Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Bard Graduate Center, and was a scholar-in-residence at the Getty Research Institute. She received her PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. 

REHS Galleries offes Maurice Utrillo

More information

Maurice Utrillo

(1883 - 1955)

Le Square Saint Pierre, Sous la neige

Oil on canvas

13.375 x 9.75 inches

Signed

BIOGRAPHY - Maurice Utrillo (1883 - 1955)

A French painter best known for his poetic depictions of Montmartre and other Parisian cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre district of Paris, Utrillo was the son of the artist Suzanne Valadon, who had been a model for prominent painters such as Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec before becoming a painter herself. The identity of his father remains uncertain, though the Spanish artist Miguel Utrillo acknowledged paternity.

Utrillo’s early life was turbulent. He struggled with mental illness and alcoholism from a young age, spending time in asylums. To provide him with a calming and productive outlet, his mother encouraged him to take up painting. Utrillo proved to be a natural talent, developing a distinctive style that blended realism with Impressionistic light and color. His most acclaimed works were painted during his “white period” (circa 1909–1914), characterized by a pale palette and textured surfaces made with plaster and other materials mixed into his paint.

He became widely known for his quiet, atmospheric street scenes—churches, cafes, houses, and alleys rendered with a haunting stillness. Montmartre was a frequent subject, but he also painted in other French towns and cities. Though never as innovative as his contemporaries in the avant-garde, Utrillo gained popularity for the emotional resonance of his work and was celebrated in both France and abroad.

Despite his success, Utrillo led a troubled personal life, often struggling with mental instability and addiction. He married Lucie Valore in 1935 and spent his later years in relative seclusion in the south of France. Maurice Utrillo died in 1955 in Dax, France.

Today, Utrillo is remembered as one of the few notable painters of Montmartre born and raised in the district, and his evocative urban landscapes remain cherished contributions to 20th-century French art.

RENDEZVOUS OF DREAMS Surrealism and German Romanticism

Hamburger Kunsthalle

13 June to 12 October 2025

The major exhibition RENDEZVOUS OF DREAMS at the Hamburger Kunsthalle commemorates the 100th anniversary of the founding of international Surrealism by examining its striking affinities with German Romanticism. Taking as its starting point a novel comparison of two paintings in the Kunsthalle, the show places over 230 iconic works by both great and lesser-known Surrealists – among them Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim, René Magritte, André Masson, Salvador Dalí, Dorothea Tanning, Paul Klee, Valentine Hugo, Victor Brauner and Toyen – in new contexts as well as stimulating juxtapositions with more than 70 masterpieces of German Romanticism, including works by Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge alongside examples of Romantic poetry. 

 Themes that fascinated German Romantic artists and writers, such as the night and dreams – understood as a kind of higher vision – as well as the power of imagination, the microcosm versus the macrocosm, and a special feeling for nature would serve as sources of inspiration for Surrealism one century later. The intellectual attitudes and pictorial inventions of Friedrich, Runge, Carl Gustav Carus, Carl Wilhelm Kolbe and many more, along with the writings of Novalis, Achim and Bettine v. Arnim, Karoline v. Günderrode, Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe, Friedrich Hölderlin and Heinrich von Kleist, would play an important role in the search for a revolutionary form of art in the twentieth century. 

Astoundingly, this recourse to Romanticism was even more pronounced in the years of war, resistance and exile, when Surrealism took up the mantle of the earlier move- ment as a reaction against the »disenchantment of the world«, reflecting its revolutionary dimension. Both movements focused on evoking a certain attitude toward life and calling into question assumptions about reality and its limitations – culminating in nothing less than a transformation of individual and society. Though born out of a different historical situation, Novalis’s credo of the »romanticisation of the world« seems to anticipate the Surrealists’ striving for a higher spiritual revolt in the form of a »surreality«.

When the two movements are considered together based on intriguing compar- isons as well as explicit tributes, in some cases involving works selected from the Kunsthalle’s own collection, certain analogies and differences become manifest. One example is Max Ernst’s painting A Beautiful Morning (Un beau matin), an homage to Morning (first version) (1808) by Philipp Otto Runge. Produced after his first visit to the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 1965, Ernst’s painting makes refer- ence both conceptually and formally to his revered Romantic colleague. The two important works have been in the Kunsthalle’s collection for more than 60 years but are now being analysed and presented together for the very first time. New research has also brought to light another surprising Hamburg reception history, in this case for Max Ernst’s programmatic Surrealist painting The Rendezvous of Friends (1922).

In another section of the exhibition, Julian Rosefeldt’s contemporary video Manifesto (2015) highlights the enduring relevance of the question André Breton posed 100 years ago in his Surrealist manifesto regard- ing the importance of imagination, dreaming and the exploration of other levels of reality. RENDEZVOUS OF DREAMS thus brings together specific local as well as far-flung international discoveries spanning different media and periods.

For this large-scale exhibition, the Hamburger Kunsthalle is collaborating for the first time with the Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’Art Moderne, Paris, enabling it to present over 30 exceptional works on loan including Salvador Dalí’s The Invisible Sleeping Woman, Horse, Lion etc. (1930) and René Magritte’s The Double Secret (1927). In its entirety, the comprehensive exhibition offers visitors the unique opportunity to experience world-renowned artworks, some of them never before shown, from over 80 international, private and public collections in the USA, Mexico and several European countries, including the Philadel- phia Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Colección FEMSA (Mexico); the Centre Pompidou in Paris; the Tate London; the Kunsthalle Prague; the Kunsthaus Zürich and many more, as well as more than 30 international private collections, some of which have remained hidden until now.

The works on display date from the late eighteenth century to 1980 and cover all media, comprising around 300 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, films, sculptures and objects by 65 Surrealists and 30 Romantic artists. Among them are many still under-recognised Surrealists such as Meret Oppenheim, Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Suzanne Van Damme and Jane Graverol. A large number of archival documents and manuscripts in the show trace the reception of the German Romantics by the Surrealists.

In 15 chapters, including Friendship, Dream, Metamorphoses, Perception of Nature, Love, Ruin, Forest, Cosmos and Hymns to the Night, the extensive exhibition compares and contrasts themes, philosophical concepts, paradigms, motifs and methods in visual art, poetry and theory, beginning with a consideration of the Manifesto of Surrealism by André Breton and explicit homages by the Surrealists to the German Romantics.

RENDEZVOUS OF DREAMS comprises three exhibition areas and extends over a total of 2,000 square metres, from the Hubertus Wald Forum (1/Dream), via a »Passage« consisting of several cabinets providing background information, to the gallery before the Rotunda in the Lichtwark building (2/Forest) and finally the stately domed hall (3/Cosmos).

In the »Passage« between the sections, the Kunsthalle’s Art Education and Outreach department has devised interactive activities that allow viewers to draw inspiration from the original works to try out various artistic techniques, Surrealist processes and games. In addition to a photo station and the Surreal- ist game Cadavre Exquis, Romantic and Surrealist literature enables visitors to immerse themselves in the artists’ world. Another station offers sylvan sounds and scents that attune visitors to the exhibition section 2/Forest.

A wide range of guided tours for the public or for private booking provide in-depth information on the exhibits, as do the audio tours for adults (German/English) and for children and young people aged 8 and over (German), which are available free of charge via the Kunsthalle app. On one Saturday a month, various artistic techniques can be tried out at the Open Studio for the whole family.

The comprehensive event programme offers expert and artist talks as well as panel discussions at the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Abaton Cinema, which will be screening a number of Surrealist films toaccompany the exhibition. For example, the internationally renowned artist Julian Rosefeldt will speak about the background behind his work Manifesto in the show and the power of Surrealism (4 Sept.). The Salon Surreal (18 Sept.) will musically spotlight current topics relating to the exhibition and host some interesting guests. And the young friends’ society, Junge Freunde der Kunsthalle e. V., is organising a big party to round out the show (3 July).

An extensive, richly illustrated catalogue (344 pages, Hatje Cantz Verlag) is available for 45 euros at the museum store or via www.freunde-der-kunsthalle.de at the bookstore price of 58 euros. Over 30 inter- national scholars of Surrealism present here the latest findings on the relationship between international Surrealism and German Romanticism, organised according to the chapters of the exhibition and with a focus on individual protagonists.

The exhibition is part of the international celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the Manifesto of Surrealism and is being hosted in varying forms at the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels (21 February to 21 July 2024), the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (4 September 2024 to 13 January 2025), the Fundación Mapfre, Madrid (6 February to 11 May 2025), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (8 November 2025 to 16 February 2026).

Curator: Dr. Annabelle Görgen-Lammers
Assistant curators: Vera Bornkessel and Maria Sitte Research assistant: Laura Förster (Jan.–Sept. 2024)

Dr. Carsten Brosda, Hamburg Senator for Culture and Media: »Following the major exhibition marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of Caspar David Friedrich, the Hamburger Kunsthalle is now celebrating 100 years of Surrealism. In keeping with the collection’s focus on Romanticism, the exhibition explores for the first time the Surrealists’ fascination with the German Romantics and spotlights the extent to which artists reacted to social upheavals in their works. The cooperation with the Centre Pompidou and other renowned museums demonstrates what is possible when cultural institutions work together across borders. The Kunsthalle is thus once again creating a first-rate cultural occasion for residents of the city and a reason for visitors from all over to flock to Hamburg.«

Michael Behrendt, Chairman of the Hapag-Lloyd Foundation: »Surrealism, whose 100th anniversary we are celebrating with this exhibition, promoted values that are more important today than ever: questioning what is familiar, appreciating the power of the imagination and strengthening interpersonal dialogue. We therefore immediately agreed to act as the main sponsor for this marvellous retrospective as our contribution to the creative dynamism and cultural diversity of our ›home port‹ of Hamburg.«

Dr. Ekkehard Nümann, Chairman of the Freunde der Kunsthalle e. V.: »We are once again delighted to be able to provide significant support for such a trailblazing exhibition project. The origins of this show lie in a pair of paintings by Max Ernst and Philipp Otto Runge in the collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle that have prompted a joint consideration of German Romanticism and international Surrealism. Comparing these two masterpieces has opened up new areas of research while offering art-lovers a fresh perspective on the two periods.«

Prof. Dr. Frank Druffner, Acting Secretary General of the Kulturstiftung der Länder: »With this exhibition, the Hamburger Kunsthalle is proposing a new approach to two important focal points of its collection by juxtaposing works of German Romanticism for the first time with the international Surrealist movement in order to trace intellectual affinities across time and national borders. I am particularly pleased that the achievements of female artists from both movements are also being honoured here – thanks to prestigious international loans – so that attention can be drawn to this gap in the history of art.«

Images

Max Ernst (1891–1976)
Der Hausengel (Der Triumph des Surrealismus) (L'ange du foyer (Le triomphe du surréalisme)), 1937
Öl auf Leinwand, 114,2 x 146,5 cm Collection Hersaint
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
Foto: Vincent Everarts Photography Brussels

Max Ernst (1891–1976)
Ein schöner Morgen (Un beau matin), 1965
Öl auf Leinwand, 92 x 73 cm Hamburger Kunsthalle, Dauerleihgabe der Stiftung Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025 Foto: Elke Walford

Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810) Der Morgen (erste Fassung), 1808 Öl auf Leinwand, 109 x 85,5 cm Hamburger Kunsthalle © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk Foto: Elke Walford

Toyen (1902–1980)
Traum (Sen), 1937
Öl auf Leinwand, 81,1 x 100 cm Kunsthalle Praha
© Kunsthalle Praha
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer,
um 1817
Öl auf Leinwand, 94,8 x 74,8 cm Dauerleihgabe der Stiftung Ham- burger Kunstsammlungen © SHK / Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk Foto: Elke Walford

Paul Nash (1889–1946)
Totes Meer, 1940/41
Öl auf Leinwand, 102 x 152,4 cm Tate: Presented by the War Artists Advisory Committee 1946
© Tate

René Magritte (1898–1967)
Die Zukunft der Statuen (L’avenir des statues), 1932
Öl auf Gipsguss (Totenmaske Napoleons), 33,5 x 16,5 x 19 cm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg
© Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg / © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
Foto: Bernd Kirtz

Man Ray (1890–1976) Sternwartenzeit – Die Liebenden (À l'heure de l'observatoire – Les Amoureux), 1970
Lithografie, 68 x 104 cm
Clo and Marcel Fleiss Collection, Courtesy Galerie 1900–2000, Paris © Courtesy Galerie 1900–2000, Paris
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Das Eismeer, 1823/24
Öl auf Leinwand, 96,7 x 126,9 cm Hamburger Kunsthalle © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk Foto: Elke Walford

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Ziehende Wolken, um 1820 Öl auf Leinwand, 18,3 x 24,5 cm Hamburger Kunsthalle © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk Foto: Elke Walford

Max Ernst (1891–1976)Das Rendezvous der Freunde (Au rendezvous des amis), 1922 Öl auf Leinwand, 130 x 195 cm Museum Ludwig / Erworben mit Unterstützung des Landes Nord- rhein-Westfalen 1971 © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

Marion Adnams (1898–1995)
Eine Kerze des Verstehens in deinem Herzen (A Candle of Under- standing in Thine Heart), 1964 Tempera auf Karton, 58,4 x 48,2 cm RAW Collection © 2025 Artist Estate courtesy of RAW

Dorothea Tanning (1910–2012) Geburtstag (Birthday), 1942
Öl auf Leinwand, 102,2 x 64,8 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art: 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Purchased with funds contributed by C.K. Williams, II, 1999 © Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)
Weiche Konstruktion mit gekochten Bohnen (Vorahnung des Bürger- kriegs) (Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)), 1936 Öl auf Leinwand, 99 x 100 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collec- tion, 1950
© Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art / Salvador Dali, Gala- Salvador Dali Foundation
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

René Magritte (1898–1967)
Das doppelte Geheimnis (Le double secret), 1927
Öl auf Leinwand, 114 x 162 cm Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne / Centre de création industrielle, Ankauf 1980, © bpk / CNAC-MNAM / Georges Meguerditchian
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
[Only available on request – see note in footer.]

Vermeer’s Love Letters

 The Frick Collection

June 18 through August 31, 2025

Museum to Debut New Special Exhibition Galleries with Major Vermeer Loans from Rijksmuseum and National Gallery of Ireland 

 In the first show to be held in The Frick Collection’s new Ronald S. Lauder Exhibition Galleries, three works by Johannes Vermeer will be presented from June 18 (starting at 1:00 p.m.) through August 31, 2025. The unprecedented installation Vermeer’s Love Letters unites the Frick’s iconic 

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632–1675), Mistress and Maid, ca. 1666–67. Oil on canvas, 35 1/2 x 31 in. (90.2 x 78.7 cm). The Frick Collection, New York

Mistress and Maid with two special loans: 

The Love Letter

(De liefdesbrief)
c. 1667–1670
Oil on canvas, 44 x 38.5.cm. (17 3/8 x 15 1/8 in.)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
inv. A 1595

The Love Letter from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and 

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), 'Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid', c.1670. Image © National Gallery of Ireland

Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid from the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Displayed together in a single gallery for the first time, this trio of works will offer visitors the opportunity to consider Vermeer’s exploration of the theme of letter writing and epistolary exchange in the context of the seventeenth-century domestic settings for which the artist is renowned. Beginning June 23, the Frick will also welcome visitors on Mondays, extending its public days from five to six weekly, Wednesday through Monday.

Stated Axel Rüger, the Frick’s Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director, “This is the first exhibition in New York City since 2001 dedicated to works by Vermeer, one of the most famous artists in the world. We are excited to present this unprecedented examination of a fascinating aspect of the artist’s oeuvre in our new gallery space, designed by Selldorf Architects. We thank guest curator Dr. Robert Fucci, a distinguished scholar of seventeenth-century Dutch art from the University of Amsterdam, for his work on the show and the accompanying catalogue. For his role in securing exceptional support and much more, all due credit and heartfelt thanks go to my esteemed predecessor, Ian Wardropper, along with Xavier F. Salomon, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, and Aimee Ng, John Updike Curator, for their essential contributions.”

Added Salomon, “On the heels of the museum’s public reopening on April 17, it is fitting that we are debuting our new special exhibition galleries with a closer look at the work of Vermeer, one of the most popular artists in our collection. His Mistress and Maid is the final masterpiece that museum founder Henry Clay Frick acquired before his death, making this inaugural show a particularly appropriate tribute to his legacy as a collector.”

In taking up the motif of the exchange of letters, Vermeer and his contemporaries explored and imagined the inner lives and emotions of their painted subjects, often creating enigmatic narrative scenes. Of about three dozen surviving works by Vermeer, six are variations on this theme. The three works united in the exhibition share a particular focus on women in the domestic sphere: ladies and their maidservants. The complex relationships, tensions, and trust between these two social classes—domestic servants and their employers—is a topic linked to and exemplified by the writing, reading, and delivery of letters. Fucci examines these ideas in the literary and artistic contexts of Vermeer’s time. The display of the three works brought together in Vermeer’s Love Letters captures the artist’s ability to portray themes of everyday life with nuance, variety, and drama.

Visitors to the Frick will also have the opportunity to enjoy the museum’s other masterpieces by Vermeer, Officer and Laughing Girl and Girl Interrupted at Her Music, displayed nearby in the museum’s recently restored permanent collection galleries. Five additional works by the artist can be seen a few blocks north at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, making this an extraordinary occasion for Vermeer enthusiasts in New York City.

ACCOMPANYING PUBLICATION

The exhibition catalogue by Fucci provides a close examination of the three paintings in this show and of the motif of letter writing in Vermeer’s oeuvre and the broader cultural context of the time. Through meticulous analysis, Fucci presents the thematic undercurrents that connect these masterpieces, shedding light on Vermeer’s legacy and his ability to capture moments of intimacy with unparalleled depth. 

Vermeer’s Love Letters is published by The Frick Collection in association with Rizzoli Electa. The 112-page hardcover volume includes 60 color illustrations.