Art at the crossroads - Universal Exhibition 1900 art exhibit

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 2000 by Miriam Kramer

While many exhibitions on view at the moment survey the past thousand years, the one at the Royal Academy of Arts in London focuses on the art produced in the three years before and after the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris.

Even at the time, 1900 was seen as a crossroads. According to Robert Rosenblum, who has written the introduction to the catalogue, the period was noted for its "stylistic collisions." The works of masters such as Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, and Hans Thoma were seen alongside works by radicals such as Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, and Giacomo Balla. The two surviving legacies of the Exposition Universelle of 1900 are the Metro, which opened in 1899, and the Grand and Petit Palais, which are still used today for temporary exhibitions.

The exhibition, entitled 1900: Art at the Crossroads, is sponsored by Cantor Fitzgerald and is organized by the Royal Academy and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Some 250 paintings and sculptures treat the themes explored at the 1900 exhibition: landscape, urban life, religious subjects, portraits and self-portraits, and interiors. Artists from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australia are represented. The exhibition will be on view at the Royal Academy from January 16 to April 3, and at the Guggenheim Museum from May 11 to September 4.