Exhibition draws on Edinburgh expertise

A new international art exhibition on the Symbolist movement, which opens in Edinburgh this month, has been created with the help of two University art historians.

Richard Thomson, Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art, developed the concept for Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910, in collaboration with Rodolphe Rapetti of the Institute National d’Histoire de l’Art, Paris.

While Dr Frances Fowle, Senior Lecturer in History of Art and National Galleries Scotland Senior Curator of French Art, led the curation of the Edinburgh viewing of the exhibition.

This is a thought-provoking show which casts a new light on landscape painting in Europe at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

European openings

Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910 will be shown at the Scottish National Gallery from 14 July to 14 October.

It features major artists including Munch, Gauguin, Whistler, Mondrian, and of course Van Gogh and Kandinsky, as well as some lesser known names.

The show opened at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in February and attracted some 400,000 visitors over a four-month period.

The exhibition will move to the Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki in November.

Conference

Coinciding with the exhibition is an international conference, Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910, organised by the Leverhulme Trust-funded research network, Redefining European Symbolism c.1880-1910.

The two-day international conference will take place on 4 and 5 October 2012 at National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Please contact Craig Landt for more information.