Throughout the 1980s the National Gallery in London hosted a series of exhibitions called The Artist’s Eye which displayed groups of paintings chosen by eminent artists. Dexter Dalwood saw these shows while he was student at St Martin’s School of Art. Now a celebrated contemporary artist, he has made a selection for the Holburne Museum, drawing on the outstanding collection of Modern British art from Swindon Museum & Art Gallery.
The 32 works in this exhibition are linked by the theme ‘Home and The World’, which juxtaposes a confident sense of national identity with a yearning for exploration. Varied artistic approaches reveal the changing landscape of twentieth-century art in this country: the boldness of Vanessa Bell, the introversion of Gwen John, the gravitas of Duncan Grant, the Pop Art invention of Richard Hamilton and the intensity of Lucian Freud. Despite the differences in their approach, we see how these artists responded to the world around them and to each other.