Dulwich Picture Gallery announces 2013 Programme

Ian A.C. Dejardin, The Sackler Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery, today announced details of the Gallery’s 2013 programme, which will include a unique presentation of masterpieces by the 17th century Spanish Baroque painter, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo; the first group exhibition dedicated to six of the Slade School of Fine Art’s most notorious graduates; and the first major London exhibition dedicated to American-born artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s time in London: the city where he lived and worked for much of his life.

Ian A.C. Dejardin, The Sackler Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery, said:
“The UK’s first purpose-built art gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery was founded over 200 years ago with the ethos that as many people as possible should see great paintings. We continue to blend innovative programming, authoritative scholarship and pioneering education programmes in the belief that art can transform lives for the better.

“In 2013 we will present three outstanding new exhibitions including the rediscovery of one of the most under-celebrated Old Masters; a ground-breaking survey of the original YBAs on the eve of the centenary of the Great War; as well as the first ever major London show to focus solely on Whistler’s time in London.”

The year will start with a major exhibition of paintings by the 17th century Spanish Baroque painter, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Murillo & Justino de Neve: The Art of Friendship (6 Feb – 19 May) will focus on the artist’s relationship with his patron and friend, Don Justino de Neve, a canon of Seville Cathedral, and will bring together almost all the paintings commissioned by de Neve. The newly discovered Penitent Saint Peter, which has never before been seen in public, will be on display, alongside The Baptism of Christ, which has been taken down from its high position in Seville Cathedral for the first time since it was installed in 1667.   For the first time, the Gallery will remove a section of its permanent collection from the enfilade, allowing it to be presented in the guise of a church to enable visitors to view Murillo’s works as they were intended.

Dulwich’s celebrated ‘Spring’ (?) as a Flower Girl will also be on show as part of a concurrent special display of the Gallery’s own distinguished collection of Murillo paintings, which will reveal new insight into the artist’s technique as well as presenting a significant reattribution of The Adoration of the Magifollowing extensive technical examination and X-radiography.

The Gallery’s summer exhibition Nash, Nevinson, Spencer, Gertler, Carrington, Bomberg: A Crisis of Brilliance (12 June – 22 Sept) will bring together the best and most innovative works by these six young artists for the first time. This major exhibition will examine the evolution of the influential group who became some of the most well-known and distinctive British artists of the early 20th century. Students together at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, Paul Nash, C.R.W. Nevinson, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington and David Bomberg were known for their rebellious, often controversial, behaviour in London and the show will also bring to life the complex dramas of the group, including a fractious love triangle, a murder and multiple suicides.

In the autumn the Gallery will stage the first major exhibition in London dedicated to American-born artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s time in the capital. Whistler in London: Battersea Bridge and the Thames (16 Oct – 12 Jan 2014) will showcase paintings, etchings and drawings produced during the artist’s various London residencies between 1859 and 1903, and will include many of his most recognised scenes of London and the Thames, including Wapping, Chelsea and Battersea Bridge. The exhibition will present over 70 objects to provide a fascinating visual investigation into site, subject, technique, exhibition culture, patronage and history, tracing a transitional period in the expatriate artist’s creative development.

-Ends

Download the 2013 Exhibition Programme Press Pack (PDF Format)

Download Murillo Images (JPEG Images)

Download Crisis of Brilliance Images (JPEG Images)

Download Whistler Images (JPEG Images)

Notes to Editors