BEDFORD.- From Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden and Paul Nash to Elisabeth Frink, David Hockney and Lucian Freud some of the biggest names in British art have come together in a vibrant, wide-ranging exhibition at The Higgins Bedford that explores the history of British art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Changing Times: A Century of Modern British Art brings together more than 80 works from the Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art and The Higgins’ own collection, with paintings, works on paper and sculpture from some of the biggest names in British art. From The Higgins also come a dozen works on paper by major European artists.

Changing Times: A Century of Modern British Art is the first large-scale exhibition since the reopening of The Higgins, and is supported by The Friends of The Higgins Bedford.

Among the highlights are several powerful monumental sculptures, including Riace Figure (1986) and Walking Madonna (1981) by Elisabeth Frink, and Ralph Brown’s Meat Porters (1959). There are lithographs by Eric Ravilious from his High Street series and a pair of his watercolours, Observation Post (1939) and Rye Harbour (1938). Lucien Freud’s stunning 1945 drawing Botanical Gardens hangs alongside works John Craxton’s exquisite Yellow Estuary Landscape (1943).

A Cezanne lithograph, Large Bathers (1896), introduces a section devoted to figures in the landscape, which includes Edward Burra’s Hop Pickers Who’ve Lost Their Mothers (1924), John Minton’s Hop Pickers (1945), the early Paul Nash watercolour Fruit Pickers (1916) and The Bathing Pool (1923) by Ethel Walker, a highly regarded interwar artist who deserves to be better known. The same is true of Frances Hodgkins, whose work is also featured in Changing Times.

Another section explores the artist’s self-portrait, with David Hockney’s tongue-in-cheek etching Artist and Model alongside works by Kathe Kollwitz, William Roberts, John Bratby and John Bellany. Elsewhere the emphasis is on experiment and play, with Mark Gertler’s eerie still life The Doll (1914) and a lithograph from Marc Chagall’s Arabian Nights (1948) suite. Hockney prints depicting water can be seen alongside Howard Hodgkin’s colourful etching of Hockney’s swimming pool. Bold colour abounds in works by Sybil Andrews, Sonia Delaunay and Victor Pasmore, to name a few.

Changing Times is curated by James Russell, whose previous exhibitions include Ravilious (2015) and Edward Bawden (2018), both at Dulwich Picture Gallery.
James says, “What a pleasure it has been to explore these two sensational collections, teasing out themes and points of connection. Visitors will see works by dozens of artists, from household names to the brilliant-but neglected. They will be able to trace patterns of development and influence through the last hundred years of British art, or simply revel in an array of artworks that are by turns colourful, mysterious, thoughtful and fun.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a major new book - Revisiting Modern British Art, published in association with The Ingram Collection and edited by Jo Baring (Director, The Ingram Collection). In this wide-ranging and thought-provoking publication, published in October by Lund Humphries, experts in their field, including Changing Times curator James Russell, address specific aspects of British art of the 20th-century. Complemented by a range of striking images, this publication succeeds in showing the strength of the British artistic tradition while also encouraging the reader to rethink and explore the existing narrative.