The National Gallery London has announced its 2016 program of exhibitions beginning in February with the first presentation of Delacroix’s art in Britain for more than 50 years. Titled “Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art,” the landmark exhibition will explore Delacroix’s influence on his contemporaries, populating the Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing with more than 60 works borrowed from 30 major public and private collections around the world.
In June the Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing will host “Painters’ Paintings: From Van Dyck to Freud,” an exhibition of major pictures that were once owned by fellow painters: Van Dyck’s Titian; Reynolds’s Rembrandt; Matisse’s Degas; Lucian Freud’s Corot. “Painters’ Paintings” will be followed in October by the first major exhibition in the UK to explore the influence of Caravaggio on the art of his contemporaries and followers.
From November 4, 2015 – February 14 2016, the Gallery’s Sunley Room will host an exhibition that explores and clarifies the centuries of debate on a variety of aspects of Francesco Botticini’s monumental altarpiece (measuring 228.6 x 377.2cm), “The Assumption of the Virgin.” George Shaw, who became the National Gallery’s ninth Rootstein Hopkins Associate Artist in 2014, will then showcase a new body of work created over two years in the Room from May 11 – October 30 2016.
Coinciding with the flower shows at Chelsea and Hampton Court, an exhibition titled “Dutch Flowers” will open in the Gallery’s Room 1 on April 6 and continue until August 29. Described by the Gallery as the first display of its kind in 20 years, the exhibition will explore the development of Dutch flower painting from its beginnings in the early 17th century to its blossoming in the late 18th century, presenting an overview of the key artists active within the field
