This exhibition came from the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, where it had been shown during May and June as part of the International Festival of the Arts known as Masterpieces of the Eleventh Century.
In offering the London public this group of paintings and sculptures, the Committee of the exhibition Twentieth Century Masterpieces wanted to show examples of paintings and sculptures of the twentieth century which were well known by reputation or reproduction but which had been rarely if ever seen in public exhibitions in England.