Estorick Collection

See current exhibitions

See future exhibitions

See previous exhibitions

Artists

EXHIBITION

6 October 2021 - 19 December 2021

In autumn 2021, the Estorick’s entire collection of modern Italian art was on show throughout the museum’s six galleries in a new exhibition, Estorick Collection Uncut.

Who’s Afraid of Drawing? Works on Paper from the Ramo Collection

EXHIBITION

17 April 2019 - 23 June 2019

Milan’s Ramo Collection comprises nearly 600 works on paper by artists belonging to some of the most important movements and tendencies in twentieth-century Italian art. This exhibition – the first to present a selection of drawings from the Collection outside Italy – explored the discipline as more than just a ‘preparatory’ activity, considering it as an art form in its own right.

Giacomo Balla: Designing the Future

EXHIBITION

5 April 2017 - 25 June 2017

Organised in collaboration with the Biagiotti Cigna Collection, this major exhibition presented a career-spanning retrospective of one of Italian Futurism's most important and consistently inventive artists. Encompassing his early Divisionist imagery, iconic Futurist paintings and examples of his distinctive work in the sphere of the applied arts, it offered a comprehensive survey of Balla's multifaceted activity between the years 1895 and 1958, including many works rarely seen outside Italy.

More than Meets the Eye: New Research on the Estorick Collection

EXHIBITION

23 September 2015 - 20 December 2015

This fascinating exhibition presented the findings of a group of specialist art historians, restorers and scientists who examined key works from the Estorick’s permanent collection. Using the most up-to-date methods employed in the analysis of artworks, they shed new light on the different techniques used by a number of painters, and in some cases even revealed the presence of previously unknown images beneath, or on the back of, the Collection’s masterpieces.

On the Move: Visualising Action

EXHIBITION

13 January 2010 - 18 April 2010

Although the problem of depicting movement in painting and sculpture had concerned artists for many centuries, the birth of the Futurist movement in 1909 signalled a renewed interest in the subject. Taking as its starting point the Estorick's own collection of Futurist masterpieces, On the Move drew on a wide range of material in many different media to provide an in-depth examination of this complex and fascinating theme.

A Decade of Discovery: Ten Years of the Estorick Collection

EXHIBITION

16 January 2008 - 6 April 2008

Comprising over 120 works by many of the most prominent Italian artists of the Modernist era, the Estorick Collection opened to the public in January 1998. Described by Sir Nicholas Serota as 'one of the finest collections of early 20th century Italian art anywhere in the world', it was formed in the late 1940s and early 1950s by Eric Estorick (1913-93), an American art-dealer, writer and political scientist, and is the only collection in the United Kingdom dedicated to this turbulent and fascinating period of Italian art.

Piety and Pragmatism: Spiritualism in Futurist Art

EXHIBITION

26 September 2007 - 23 December 2007

When Futurism was founded in 1909, its hostility towards the institution of the Catholic Church was pronounced, and accompanied by a rejection of Christian concepts of morality. Despite this, the publication of a 'Manifesto of Futurist Sacred Art' in 1931 inspired a flowering of religious painting that constitutes perhaps one of the most unexpected episodes in the history of the movement.

Italian Abstraction, 1910-1960

EXHIBITION

28 June 2006 - 24 September 2006

Abstraction first emerged in Italian art around 1910, when painters belonging to the Futurist school began developing their studies of light and motion in bold new directions, depicting ‘the essential force lines of speed’ as brightly-coloured arcs and thrusting, jagged forms.

From Futurism to Arte Povera: Works from the Marcello Levi Collection

EXHIBITION

14 September 2005 - 18 December 2005

Marcello Levi is one of the leading collectors of contemporary art in Italy. He began collecting works by members of the Futurist movement, such as Giacomo Balla and Gerardo Dottori, before becoming one of the earliest supporters of Arte Povera in the late 1960s. His friendship with the artists enabled him to acquire a remarkable series of works that have rarely been shown in public.

Futurist Skies: Italian Aeropainting

EXHIBITION

6 January 2005 - 20 February 2005

Dominating Futurist art throughout the 1930s, aeropainting embodied the movement’s fascination with technology, speed and the machine, striving to capture the visual and metaphysical sensations of flight in dramatic and often intensely poetic imagery. This exhibition offered visitors an exhilarating birds-eye view of the world through the eyes of the Futurist artists.

Still Life in 20th Century Italy

EXHIBITION

30 September 2004 - 19 December 2004

In the earliest years of the twentieth century the still life genre underwent something of a renaissance. As artists became increasingly concerned with purely formal, pictorial values, it came to be considered a perfect vehicle for experimentation with new aesthetics, free from any complicating narrative dimensions.

Painting Light: Italian Divisionism, 1885-1910

EXHIBITION

4 June 2003 - 7 September 2003

Inspired by the achievements of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, the school of painting known as Divisionism emerged in Italy around the end of the nineteenth century. Like their French counterparts, these artists were fascinated with capturing effects of light, and this pioneering exhibition explored their attempts to evoke that most elusive of subjects.

Balla and Futurist Italy: Paintings from the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome

EXHIBITION

9 September 1998 - 13 December 1998

This exhibition of 23 Futurist works on loan from the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, linked the first and second waves of Futurism through the works of Giacomo Balla (1871-1958). Balla was already well established as an artist and teacher before coming under the influence of Futurism in 1910. His extraordinary versatility and creativity had a profound influence on his contemporaries and the eight canvases on show were from his most vibrant Futurist period.