Monet talks: ‘Turner, Monet, Twombly’ at Tate Liverpool

It’s turning into a strong week for art stuff in the city. On one hand, you’ve got a new Banksy popping up out of nowhere. On the other, you’ve got Tate Liverpool announcing a massive new show - and guaranteed huge tourism boost - for the city.

‘Turner, Monet, Twombly: Later Paintings’ kicks off in June 2012 and is set to be the Tate’s primary show next year. Taking a selection of works from JMW Turner, Claude Monet and Cy Twombly, it’ll mix, match and juxtapose over 60 of their paintings to highlight the common themes in the trio’s work, be it techniques (light, landscape, colour) or themes (mortality, melancholy, grief, Pete Price). (We might’ve made up that last one).

As much as Turner and Twombly are thrilling, the real draw is Claude Monet’s legendary ‘water lilies’ series. An unprecedented five of them are set to feature in the show, with two of them never actually exhibited in the UK before.

The pieces will be travelling in from far and wide come June: Vienna, Basel, New York, Gothenburg and London, before hanging in Tate Liverpool until winter. Well, it was either that or a gap year in Ibiza.

Additionally, news reaches us today that it’s set to be the first key exhibition overseen by new artistic director Francesca Manacorda, who heads here from Artissima, the international fair of contemporary art in Turin.

‘Turner, Monet, Twombly’ is the first time in over a decade that five of Monet’s water lilies have been brought together in the UK, and with two of those never seen before over here, it’s one tres sérieux big deal. A coup for the city, and another reason to get excited for the summer.

Turner, Monet, Twombly: Later Paintings
22 June – 28 October 2012
Tate Liverpool, Albert Dock

Image:
Claude Monet, Water Lilies (Nymphéas) 1916-19. Oil on canvas, 2000 x 1800 mm.
Courtesy Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Basel. Photo by Robert Bayer, Basel