Modern British Art

Until 1 June 2003

This display from the Tate Collection charted a century of British art, presenting key masterpieces alongside lesser-known works and new acquisitions to create a full and varied story. Organised by theme and in a loose chronology, the display encouraged visitors to make connections between certain ideas common to many of the artists throughout the last century. Within the display, a Focus Room enabled visitors to explore key moments of British art in greater depth by presenting two small monographic or group shows each year, such as the work of the eccentric British artist Edward Burra.

Philip Guston: Paintings and Prints from the Tate Collection

9 March - 18 August 2002

This display presented an in-depth examination of Philip Guston, one of the most influential and important American painters of the twentieth-century. A pre-eminent Abstract Expressionist, he later became a major figurative painter. The exhibition examined this radical and dramatic transition from abstraction to figuration, drawing on Tate's strong holdings of this artist.

Pin-up: Glamour and Celebrity Since the Sixties

26 March 2002 - 19 January 2003

Pin-up charted the changing face of glamour and celebrity from Pop art to the present. It presented British and American works that employ the visual language of the fashion or publicity shot as a means to celebrate or comment on the world of fame. Pin-up provided a timely insight into the highs and lows of our celebrity-obsessed culture and raised many issues concerning hero worship and body image.

Formal Situations: Abstraction in Britain 1960-1970

5 April - 30 November 2003

Sponsored by Tate Liverpool Members

This display charted the development of British abstract painting and sculpture during the 1960s. It took its starting point from the influential Situation exhibition which was organised in 1960 and changed notions of abstraction in Britain. The exhibition included a wide cross-section of artists who developed the course of abstraction in Britain. These artists shocked 1960s audiences with their unusual emphasis on scale, uncompromising ideas about how art should be displayed, and radical pursuit of abstract imagery. These artists rejected the idea of abstraction from nature and developed formal abstraction through an emphasis on colour, surface and opticality.

Rebecca Horn

19 April 2003 - 11 January 2004

German sculptor and film maker, Rebecca Horn has, over the last two decades, created many site-specific installations, sculptural objects and films. Tate has extensive holdings of her work and this display focused on some key pieces. The room-size installation, Ballet of the Woodpeckers (1986), comprising eight large mirrors and mechanical hammers that appear to strike the glass, was shown alongside a selection of performance objects and films.

The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act

26 September 2003 - 28 March 2004

The Stage of Drawing presented a selection of over 120 important drawings and nearly thirty prints from the Tate Collection, selected by the British artist Avis Newman. It featured a wide array of both familiar and rarely exhibited works from the mid-1700s to the 1980s by British and international artists such as Joshua Reynolds, William Blake, Edgar Degas, Pierre Bonnard, William Turner, Aubrey Beardsley, Francis Bacon, Kurt Schwitters, Eileen Agar, Barbara Hepworth, Richard Hamilton, Eva Hesse and Andy Warhol.

This exhibition was organised in collaboration with The Drawing Center, New York, where it was first shown, before travelling to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

The Shape of Ideas: Models and Sculptures from the Tate Collection

13 December 2003 - 31 May 2004

The Shape of Ideas presented small-scale sculpture, models and maquettes, by some of the most important and innovative artists of the twentieth-century. It included both familiar and rarely-seen works, many on display for the first time since they were acquired by Tate, by artists including Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Reg Butler, Naum Gabo, Barbara Hepworth, Jacques Lipchitz, Joan Miró, Henry Moore and Kurt Schwitters. This display complemented The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act, examining ways in which artists explore preliminary ideas in three dimensions.

International Modern Art

From June 2003

Sponsored by DLA

International Modern Art follows a loose chronology of international developments in modern art since 1900. Artists included are Paul Cézanne, Sonia Delaunay, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock and Jake and Dinos Chapman. The display showcases major international movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Nouveau Réalisme and Pop and features important works from the Tate Collection, many not shown before in Liverpool. During this period, the Focus Rooms looked more closely at the work of the pioneering French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and the Jamaican-born sculptor Ronald Moody.