European Masterpieces from The Met

Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) is the exclusive Australian venue for the major exhibition ‘European Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York’ from 12 June to 17 October, 2021.

The once-in-a-lifetime exhibition features works by some of the greatest painters of all time, including Rembrandt, Turner, van Gogh, Monet and many more, offering audiences a remarkable survey of 500 years of European art from The Met’s collection.

Presented by QAGOMA in partnership with Art Exhibitions Australia, ‘European Masterpieces’ features 65 paintings charting Western art history’s most iconic movements and will also include works by Titian, Raphael, Goya, Vermeer, Cézanne and others. 

The exhibition begins in the 1420s, with a drama-filled panel painting, The Crucifixion by Fra Angelico, and end in 1919 with one of Monet’s late Water Lilies, a precursor to abstraction.

Visitors can see see the finely painted, emotionally charged altarpiece panel depicting the Crucifixion of Christ by the Florentine artist Fra Angelico; Titian’s poetic Venus and Adonis of the 1550s; Caravaggio’s lyrical The Musicians of 1597; Rembrandt’s painterly Flora of c.1654; and Vermeer’s elaborate Allegory of the Catholic Faith of c.1670-72, together with outstanding nineteenth century impressionist and post-impressionist paintings by Monet, Renoir, van Gogh and more.

Director Chris Saines said, 'The exhibition traces the development of art and artists from a time when creativity was closely controlled through the patronage of church and state, to a period in which our contemporary idea of the independent artist was born. As this superbly representative historical account of European painting makes clear, artistic innovation – seen in works of art that have challenged and sometimes changed the world – is far from an invention of our time.'

Need to know - European Masterpieces is accompanied by a public program and an Up Late program, as well as a major publication.

QAGOMA is a valued partner of Must Do Brisbane.com

Image Credits - Top to Bottom

 1. Claude Monet / France 1840–1926 / Water Lilies 1916–19 / Oil on canvas / 130.2 x 200.7cm / Gift of Louise Reinhardt Smith,         1983 / 1983.532 / Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

 2. Joseph Mallord William Turner / England 1775–1851 / Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute c.1835 / Oil on         canvas  / 91.4 x 122.2cm Bequest of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1899 / 99.31 / Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

 3. Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) / Italy 1571–1610 / The Musicians 1597 / Oil on canvas / 92.1 x 118.4cm / Rogers Fund, 1952 / 52.81 Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

 4.Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) / Italy c.1485/90–1576 / Venus and Adonis 1550s / Oil on canvas / 106.7 x 133.4cm / The Jules Bache Collection, 1949 / 49.7.16 / Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

 5. Pieter Claesz / The Netherlands 1596/97–1660 / Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill 1628 / Oil on wood / 24.1 x 35.9cm / Signed and dated (middle right): PC / Ao 1628 / Rogers Fund, 1949 / 49.107 /  Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

 6. Paul Cézanne / France 1839–1906 / Still Life with Apples and Pears c.1891–92 / Oil on canvas / 44.8 x 58.7cm / Bequest of Stephen C Clark, 1960 / 61.101.3 / Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York