Kenneth Clark - Looking for Civilisation, Tate Britain

Unparalleled insight into the life of one of modern art's greatest champions - featuring Cezanne, Degas and Leonardo Da Vinci...

From 20th May to 10th August 2014 Tate Britain will be re-telling the invaluable role played by the British art world’s hero and doyen Sir Kenneth Clark, of BBC Civlization renown. Looking for Civilisation is a 200-piece composite exhibition of works from Clark’s personal collection and works by the artists whom he championed. It includes pieces by Degas, Constable, Cézanne, Henry Moore and Da Vinci. 

To the insiders of British art history Clark’s name holds a legendary significance far beyond the celebrated BBC documentary series that outlined the history of western art, architecture and thought since about The Beginning of Time. Which isn’t to say Clark wasn’t wonderful at drawing a wider public attention to the wonder of art. 

During the 1930s and ‘40s, the period on which this exhibition will concentrate, Clark publically patronised and pushed creative greats from the famous to the now forgotten: from the scandalous Bloomsbury Group of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, to the subdued Euston Road School, a forgotten movement devoted to realistic portrayals of city life. He was a steadfast supporter of newly installed National Treasure Henry Moore as well as the visionary landscape painters Graham Sutherland and John Piper: the former’s thorny landscapes became dark, surreal poetic visions, and the latter’s work was collected by HM the late Queen Mother. 

Clark was a quintessential connoisseur with a huge sense of civic duty, and used his personal wealth to fund an art he believed the British public needed. Bringing modern art down from the ivory tower and into life, it is to him that we owe a new art grounded in tradition: perhaps a very ‘British’ kind of modernism.

This is a valuable chance see the all-too forgotten tale of 20th century British art through the discerning eyes of its greatest advocate. Focusing on Clark’s dazzling role in 20th century British culture, this exhibition is a must-see for anyone intrigued by the story of our art as it emerges, blinking, from the margins of history.