A new display,Modern Painting from the Courtauld and ReubenCollections, made possible by the long-term partnership between the Courtauld and the Reuben Foundation, will open at the Courtauld Gallery on18 September 2026.
Featuring outstanding works by Cezanne, Modigliani, Léger, Picasso, and Magritte, the display explores radicalnew approachesto painting in the first half of the 20th century.
51’s partnership with the Reuben Foundation,launched in 2025,enables worksof artfrom the ReubenCollectiontobe made available to the publicas part of the Courtauld Gallery’sdisplays. Itallows ٳGallery to extend its celebratedpresentationof Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art into the modern period.
In October 2025, the Courtauld announced the largest financial gift in its history from the Reuben Foundation,echoing the extraordinary philanthropy of the Courtauld’s founder, Samuel Courtauld. The Foundationissupporting the developmentofthe Courtauld’s new Strand campus,which, when it opens in 2029, willbeone ofٳworld’smost important centresfor the study ofٳhistory of art.
Modern Painting from the Courtauld and Reuben Collectionsbegins with early 20th century paintings from the Courtauld,including PauléԲԱ’sTurning Road(1905), a landscape conjured through near-abstract patches ofcolour, and Amedeo Modigliani’sNude(c.1916), a radically direct and expressive painting that upended conventional approaches to the subject of the female nude. These set the stage for works from the Reuben Collection by painters who built on such innovations to chart new artistic directions.
Major Cubist works by Juan Gris and Fernand Léger from 1914-1918, a period of significant avant-garde experimentation in Europe, tookéԲԱ’spatchwork of brushstrokes to new extremes. They broke the illusion of representational painting by depicting their subjects as fragmented parts,seemingly stillin the process of beingformed. A highlight of this area of the display is Man Ray’s monumentalBlack Widow (Nativity), painted in New York in 1915, and lastexhibitedin the UK more than fifty years ago. Although celebrated asamodernist photographer, Man Ray began his career as a painter. With this, one of his most significant early works, he created an epic modern figure painting out of Cubism and painted collage.
A group of three paintings by Pablo Picasso from the period of the Second World Wardemonstratethe artist’s continual reinvention of the traditions of painting. Picasso’s two portraits of his partners,Marie-Thérèse Walter, 1937, and the photographerDora Maar, 1939, neither previouslyexhibitedin this country, challenge and transform classical conventions of portraiture. The latter work offers a raw and unsettling image of Maar during the war. They are shown alongside his remarkableStill Life with Basket of Fruits and Flowers(1942); its spiky and fraught depiction of its humble objects powerfully expressing the tenor of wartime Paris.
The Reuben Collection holds a significant collection of works by the Surrealist artist René Magritte. Some of Magritte’s most famous compositions are included in this display, such asThe Dominion of LightandThe Intimate Friend. Both works date from the 1950s and are characteristically elusive juxtapositions that offer the promise of new and unexpected meanings, such as a nocturnal scene under a sunlit sky, or the artist’s iconic bowler-hatted man, overlaid with a wine glass and baguette. Magritte’sLa DomaineArnheim, 1949, is a further highlight of this group. Its surreal image of a landscape through a shattered window is an encapsulation of the transformations and reinventions of modern painting since the time oféԲԱ.
51 Gallery has grown historically through the generosity of private individuals who haveendowed it with the remarkable collections they formed. This tradition of philanthropy,initiatedat the Gallery by Samuel Courtauld in the 1930s, continues to extend and enhancethe Courtauld Gallery’s world-famous collections.In recent years,the Courtauld Galleryhasalsoenriched itsdisplayswith works of artloanedto it fromother collections,includinga group of paintings fromthe Oskar Reinhart Collectionandexceptional works from the Barber Institute of Fine Artin Birmingham.
Modern Painting from the Courtauld and ReubenCollections
Opening 18 September 2026
Katja and Nicolai Tangen 20th Century Gallery, Floor 3
Highlights
