The National Gallery announces Asia Tour

’Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery’ – a new exhibition of 52 paintings by artists such as Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Constable, Monet, and Van Gogh – will be touring Asia during 2023 and early 2024.

As the Gallery prepares for NG200 – its year-long Bicentenary celebration from 10 May 2024 – significant building work in Trafalgar Square has given us an exceptional opportunity to bring even more people and paintings together globally by offering a chance for Asian audiences to access our collection without having to travel to London, especially welcome at a time when international travel in the region is still limited.

This new series builds on the hugely successful tour to Australia and Japan in 2020 and 2021, which was enjoyed by more than 700,000 people, along with numerous other ongoing National Gallery activities in the Asia region including learning and retail experiences, plus digital and brand partnerships.

The first venue for ’Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery’ will be the Shanghai Museum from 17 January – 7 May 2023 and will be the National Gallery’s first-ever exhibition in China. Two further venues will be announced soon.

’Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery’ is in essence a ‘National Gallery in miniature’ – a selection representative of the Gallery’s history which offers audiences a concise and beautiful history of Western art as uniquely told by the National Gallery’s collection.

The exhibition has eight sections - Botticelli and Painting in 15th-Century Italy, Raphael and the Italian High Renaissance, Gossaert and the Northern Renaissance, Caravaggio and Baroque painting in Italy and Spain, Rembrandt and 17th-Century Painting in Northern Europe, Canaletto and European Painting in the Eighteenth Century, Van Gogh and the Impressionists and Turner and Painting in Britain.

Key loans include Sandro Botticelli, Three Miracles of Saint Zenobius (about 1500), Raphael, The Garvagh Madonna (about 15010–11), Jan Gossaert, A Young Princess (about 1530–2), Caravaggio, Boy bitten by a Lizard (about 1594–5), Rembrandt, Self Portrait at the Age of 63 (1669) Canaletto, Venice: Entrance to the Cannaregio (probably 1734–42), Van Gogh, Long Grass with Butterflies (1890) Claude Monet, Irises (about 1914-1917), John Constable, Stratford Mill (1820) and Turner, The Parting of Hero and Leander (before 1837).

Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, says ‘I am delighted that the National Gallery is building on its highly successful tours of Australia and Japan and reaching new audiences across Asia and internationally.

The Gallery has an important role to play in promoting the UK’s globally recognised position as a centre for culture and the arts, and we remain passionately committed to cultural exchange internationally.

The tour demonstrates how the Gallery continues to innovate in the way it designs and delivers partnerships, with the exhibition representing what is essentially the ‘National Gallery in miniature’. It is also a reminder of the continued interest of audiences from around the world in the European tradition and the world-renowned collection we are custodians of here at the National Gallery.’

Dr Chu Xiaobo, Director of the Shanghai Museum, says ’We’re thrilled to work together to bring the masterpieces from the National Gallery to Shanghai, to share its prestige collection of western art with Chinese audience for the first time. As a museum to house top-class Chinese art, the Shanghai Museum is also proud of embracing and demonstrating other civilizations and arts across the globe in the past half century. This exhibition would be the most ambitious project to present so many big names in the western art history and gather their great works for the first time in Chinese mainland. It would be a feast for the eyes and the soul as well. We hope the beauty of art could be shared and appreciated within people from different cultures.’

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Notes

The National Gallery is one of the greatest art galleries in the world. Founded by Parliament in 1824, the Gallery houses the nation’s collection of paintings in the Western European tradition from the late 13th to the early 20th century. The collection includes works by Bellini, Cézanne, Degas, Leonardo, Monet, Raphael, Rembrandt, Renoir, Rubens, Titian, Turner, Van Dyck, Van Gogh and Velázquez. The Gallery’s key objectives are to enhance the collection, care for the collection and provide the best possible access to visitors. Admission free. More at nationalgallery.org.uk

Shanghai Museum - Founded in 1952 and relocated at its current location in 1996, the Shanghai Museum houses over 1 million objects in its world-class collection of traditional Chinese arts and artefacts, spanning over 8,000 years. The Museum’s new building located in Pudong will be open in 2023 with more spaces and accesses for displays, exhibitions, public programs and visitor experience. In addition to showcasing essence of Chinese history and culture, it also hosts ambitious touring exhibitions across the globe. These have included ’A History of the World in 100 Objects’ (2017) from the British Museum and ’Landscapes of the Mind: Masterpieces from Tate Britain 1700–1980 (2018)’. More at www.shanghaimuseum.net