SCOTLAND boasts, in the work held by its National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, a genuinely world class collection of the art of the early modernists and their successors. It is fantastically encouraging to discover – in this recently opened exhibition of newly acquired works – that the collection continues to be strengthened by the purchase and donation of some major and fascinating pieces.
Consisting, for the most part, of work brought into the collection over the last five years, this major exhibition (which is free to the public) takes up the entire ground floor of Modern 1 (the first of the two buildings that comprise the gallery). It is an excellent show, impressive in its diversity, that is worthy of gracing galleries anywhere in the world.
Arguably the most important acquisition is The Horse Rider (below) by the great Jewish-Belarusian artist Marc Chagall. Painted between 1949 and 1953, this beautiful fantasia in blues and yellows reflects Chagall’s fascination with the circus (a recurring theme in his work).
Executed using Chagall’s preferred gouache method (in which pigment is ground in water and thickened with a glutinous substance) the painting is striking for the depth of the blue in which the artist depicts the night sky. Its dreamlike, almost mythical quality – a semi-abstract trapeze artist watches over the beautiful, female rider as she leads her stoical, pastel blue horse – has parallels in the allusive work of the great Andalusian writer Federico García Lorca.
In the room of works adding to the gallery’s already substantial collection of surrealist art we find one of Salvador Dalí’s famous lobster telephones (pieces which are, to my mind, unusually penetrable, in their seeming comment on the difficulties of telecommunications). Importantly, the gallery acknowledges the need to add more work by female artists to its surrealist collection.
Perhaps most fascinating among the newly acquired works by female surrealists is Leonora Carrington’s arresting portrait of her lover, the fellow surrealist Max Ernst. The Anglo-Mexican painter depicts a somewhat inscrutable Ernst in a frozen landscape.
In the work, the German artist carries a lantern containing a small horse (often a symbol with which Carrington represented herself). It is a compellingly ambiguous and brilliantly executed painting.
Whilst the major works are to be found in main rooms of the gallery, visitors to the exhibition would be well advised to remain attentive to the pieces that are displayed in the adjoining corridor. For instance, the exquisite, little pencil drawings by English artist Marie Harnett (a graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art), depicting moments from the Brazilian bio-pic Heleno, are absolutely captivating.
Breathtakingly precise, these black and white images (such as one of a glamorous singer, her outstretched arms clad in long, satin gloves) stand in the centuries old tradition of artistic miniaturism. They also bring to mind the technical brilliance of Gerhard Richter’s remarkable photograph paintings.
Other contemporary works include Graham Fagen’s four-screen video installation work The Slave’s Lament. This moving piece shows reggae artist Ghetto Priest and the Scottish Ensemble performing the titular song by Robert Burns, put to music by Sally Beamish.
Wangechi Mutu’s series of collages on the depiction of the female body, and of the bodies of Black women in particular, are mesmerisingly powerful.
Damien Hirst’s bronze sculpture Wretched War has a Goya-esque, classical horror.
Jenny Saville’s Study for Branded – a preparatory painting for a larger nude self-portrait – is a resonating and uncompromising work of feminist realism. Add to that, deeply interesting pieces by such diverse artists as Bridget Riley, Steven Campbell and Elisabeth Frink, and these new arrivals make for an outstanding exhibition.
The exhibition runs until Spring 2023
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