Picasso and Modern British Art

The Independent“The first thing that strikes you is the size of the show...” The central part of the Tate's show, covering the 1920s and 1930s, is to a large extent about failure: the impossibility of grafting something hard and empirical on to a national tradition that reverts, inevitably, to lyricism...

this is london“Again and again we must be astonished by his capability...” Picasso trumps them all and even with the worst of paintings so dominates the show that he is a Nureyev dancing among amputees, a cruel spectacle...

The Arts Desk“David Hockney’s playful posthumous homages are welcome light relief...” The intertwining and interplay of artists, their art, and the ways in which art reaches the public has never been more intelligently visible, nor the distance between genius and talent...

The Telegraph“Francis Bacon is the artist who suffers most in comparison...” The perverse brilliance of Picasso And Modern British Art is to take a non-subject (Picasso’s impact here was limited to a handful of artists) and turn it into a gripping indictment of British culture in the first half of the 20th century...

Guardian“The truly disappointing room here, where the show comes apart, is Bacon's..” A fine and stimulating Picasso display. But it's such a letdown when you move from his complex energy to the brittleness of Wyndham Lewis or the stodge of Graham Sutherland – like visiting Portmeirion straight after a trip to Italy...