Issued October 2018
SAINSBURY WING
The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Gauguin Portraits
7 October 2019 – 26 January 2020
Admission charge
ROOM 1
Bartolomé Bermejo: Master of the Spanish Renaissance
12 June – 29 September 2019
Admission free
ROOM 1
Young Bomberg and the Old Masters working title
27 November 2019 – 1 March 2020
THE CREDIT SUISSE EXHIBITION: GAUGUIN PORTRAITS
7 October 2019 – 26 January 2020
Sainsbury Wing
Admission charge
The first-ever exhibition devoted to the portraits of Paul Gauguin will open at the National Gallery in autumn 2019. Spanning the period from the mid-1880s to the end of his life in 1903, 'The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Gauguin Portraits' will focus on how the artist moved away from Impressionism towards Symbolism.
Paul Gauguin, 'Self-Portrait Dedicated to Carrière', 1888 or 1889; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (1985.64.20); Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
By adding carefully selected attributes or placing the sitter into a suggestive context Gauguin was able to make portraits that expressed meaning beyond their personalities. A group of self-portraits, for example, will show how Gauguin created a range of personifications including his self-image as 'Christ in the Garden of Olives', 1889 (Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach).
By bringing together a number of works of the same sitter from different collections the exhibition will enable visitors to see how Gauguin interpreted a specific model in different media and over time.
With approximately fifty works, the exhibition will feature paintings, works on paper, and three-dimensional objects in a variety of media from public and private collections worldwide.
The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Gauguin Portraits is organised by the National Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
BARTOLOMÉ BERMEJO: MASTER OF THE SPANISH RENAISSANCE
12 June – 29 September 2019
Room 1
Admission free
The National Gallery will show a selection of works by Bartolomé Bermejo, the greatest Spanish artist of the second half of the 15th century. The exhibition will include two of Bermejo’s masterpieces: the triptych of the 'Madonna of Montserrat' from the cathedral at Acqui Terme, Alessandria (Italy) and Bermejo’s last documented work, the ‘Piedad Desplà’ from Barcelona Cathedral, neither of which has been previously exhibited in the UK.
At the centre of the exhibition will be the Gallery’s own painting by Bermejo, Saint Michael triumphs over the Devil, acquired in 1995 and displayed here following its recent conservation.
The painting is remarkable for its mastery of the pioneering Netherlandish technique of painting in oil, seen in the broad colour range and extraordinary detail in the feathered wings of Saint Michael, the detailed depiction of opulent cloth and jewels, and in the reflection of the Heavenly City on his breastplate.
Thought to be the central panel of an altarpiece formerly in the church of San Miguel in Tous, near Valencia, the Saint Michael was painted in 1468. It is Bermejo’s first documented work and only one of about twenty pictures by the artist.
YOUNG BOMBERG AND THE OLD MASTERS
27 November 2019 – 1 March 2020
Room 1
Admission free
Paintings by influential British modernist artists David Bomberg (1890–1957), will be displayed for the first time alongside the National Gallery works that inspired him.
Unknown photographer, David Bomberg painting c.1912–14 © Tate Archive
The exhibition will be staged just over a century after Bomberg’s groundbreaking first solo show at the onset of war in July 1914, when the radical young artist broke away from a reverence for tradition which had overwhelmed many of his contemporaries.
Rather than imitating his favourite artists, Bomberg analysed and studied them closely. This exhibition sets out to show how instead of inhibiting him, the works of the great masters helped him leap forward and contribute to the language of early 20th-century modernist art at its most audacious.
By showing how Bomberg’s rebellious, youthful works directly relate to paintings by the artists he most admired in the National Gallery Collection, Young David Bomberg and the Old Masters will reveal the true extent of his fascination with artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo.
Exhibition organised by the National Gallery in partnership with Tate Britain
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