Inventing Post-Impressionism

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In partnership with The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, we are presenting a major exhibition showcasing one of the most important impressionist and post-impressionist collections in the UK. Join us as we revisit the groundbreaking 1910 and 1912 Grafton Galleries exhibitions, where critic, curator and frequent visitor to Charleston, Roger Fry first introduced post-impressionism to a shocked British public.

Featuring iconic paintings and works on paper by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Fernand Léger and more. The exhibition includes items from Charleston’s permanent collection alongside a significant number of works from the Barber, whilst it is closed to enable building repair works.

Alongside the main exhibition, the Spotlight Gallery will feature the return of a Paul Cézanne painting on loan from King’s College, Cambridge. Once owned by economist John Maynard Keynes, this work was famously left in a hedge outside Charleston after an auction trip to wartime Paris.

This exhibition, blending history, art, and Bloomsbury’s role in shaping British modernism, offers a rare opportunity to explore the lasting impact of post-impressionism on British art.

*Andre Derain Portrait of Bartolomeo Savona 1906 oil on canvas. Image © The Henry Barber Trust The Barber Institute of Fine Arts University of Birmingham*