The Collections | Highlights | 19th-century & Modern Art
Highlights: 19th-century & Modern Art
The series of movements and styles which sprang up in succession in the 19th century can be followed in some detail in the Barber’s comprehensive collection of paintings, particularly in the area of landscape. Romantic landscape, for instance, is exemplified by major works by Turner's The Sun Rising Through Vapour and Delacroix. Realist painting, in turn, is illustrated by a major work by Courbet, The Sea-Arch at Etretat. There is particularly fine group of landscape paintings by the Barbizon group, including Rousseau, Corot and Daubigny, from which one can trace the development of the practice of painting directly from nature through to the Pre-Raphaelites and Rossetti’s The Blue Bower. The central focus of the collection, however, remains the outstanding group of works by the Impressionists eaturing major examples by Monet, Manet, Degas (including a fine group of bronzes) and Pissarro whose The Pond at Montfoucault exemplifies their approach to painting from nature. From the work of the Post Impressionists, including works by Van Gogh and Gauguin, one can move on to groups such as the Nabis (Bonnard’s The Evening Meal) and the Symbolists who helped rejuvenate the avant garde as the century drew to an end. The Barber also has substantial holding of prints and drawings which complement developments in painting, and, as in the case of the 19th century German examples, add a new dimension.
In the early years the Institute was bound by Lady Barber’s stipulation that it was not to collect work from the 20th century, but this was changed in 1967. Since then a number of fine modern paintings have been purchased. including an abstract by Léger titled Composition with Fruit and a major Surrealist canvas by Magritte, The Flavour of Tears (pictured above). Amongst the collection of prints and drawings especial emphasis has been placed on German art of the first decades of the 20th century with the purchase of works by Schwitters and Max Ernst and a very fine group of Expressionist prints by Nolde, Schmidt-Rotluff and Schiele. There is also a powerful lithograph by Picasso.