Courtauld Gallery to Pair Cézanne and Picasso in New London Exhibition
A new exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London will bring together modern paintings from two collections that have rarely been seen side by side. Opening September 18, “Modern Painting from the Courtauld and Reuben Collections” will place works from the gallery’s own holdings in conversation with loans from the Reuben Collection, creating a compact survey of modernism’s shifting ambitions.
Among the Courtauld works on view are Paul Cézanne’s “Turning Road” (ca. 1905) and Amedeo Modigliani’s “Nude” (ca. 1916). According to the gallery, those paintings will establish the framework for later developments in the Reuben Collection, where artists pushed those innovations in new directions. The exhibition will also include works by Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, René Magritte, Man Ray, and Pablo Picasso.
The Reuben loans are especially strong in Picasso and Magritte. They include Picasso’s “Marie-Thérèse Walter” (1937), “Dora Maar” (1939), and “Still Life with Basket of Fruits and Flowers” (1942), along with Magritte’s “The Dominion of Light” (1949) and “The Intimate Friend” (1958). Man Ray’s large 1915 painting “Black Widow (Nativity)” will also be shown; it has not been exhibited in the UK for 50 years.
The exhibition arrives as the first major initiative between the Courtauld and the Reuben Foundation since the foundation’s £30 million gift to the institution, a contribution the gallery describes as the largest in its 93-year history. The partnership extends beyond the exhibition itself. It also includes support for the redevelopment of the Courtauld’s campus at the Strand in central London, signaling a relationship that is as institutional as it is curatorial.
Founded by brothers David Reuben and Simon Reuben, the Reuben Collection has become an increasingly visible presence in the museum world through strategic loans and partnerships. At the Courtauld, those works will meet a collection long associated with close looking and modern painting’s formal breakthroughs. The result should offer visitors not just a sequence of major names, but a clearer view of how modern art evolved through dialogue, revision, and influence.
