Sculpture in Painting

About

Sculpture in Painting, the lead exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute this autumn, is the first in its galleries to consist only of paintings. Bringing together 30 works from the 1500s to the present, this internationally important display will include works by Hogarth, Vuillard and Nicholson, and will be the first opportunity for the public to see Titian's La Schiavona outside London since the 1940s. It will explore the relationship between art in two and three dimensions, looking among other things at the dialogue between painting and sculpture. The exhibition begins by looking at the juxtaposition of inanimate sculpture and the ‘living' human subject. Frederic Leighton's depiction of the Parthenon frieze lends his self-portrait academic weight, for example. The second section of the show looks at more abstract manifestations of sculpture in painting, revealing the ways in which sculpture has influenced two-dimensional representation. Works here range from de Wit's amazingly illusionistic depictions of imaginary sculptures to portraits by artists such as Hogarth and Hamilton in which the sitters, male or female, are portrayed as statuesque. Finally, Sculpture in Painting brings together a range of ‘portraits' of sculpture. The quiet composition of William Nicholson's ‘Statuettes and Rodin Bronze' from the early twentieth century and Tim Braden's considered, contemporary depictions of historical sculptures contrast with Edouard Vuillard's virtuoso brushstrokes suggesting statuettes on a mantelpiece. Taking sculpture's depiction in painting right up to the present day, the exhibition clearly demonstrates that the two media still have a fascinating interplay.