Tate’s Turners are off to China. The travelling show “J.M.W. Turner”, which has toured the US, will go to the National Art Museum in Beijing next April, with British Council support.
The US tour of Turner, with 140 Tate works, opened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC last October. It then went to the Dallas Museum of Art and closes on 21 September at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The next stop is Moscow, where the Pushkin Museum will be presenting a slightly smaller version, with 110 Tate works. This opens on 17 November.
Organising the show in Russia proved very complicated, particularly the insurance and indemnity. In the end the British Council-supported exhibition only went ahead because of sponsorship from Russian steel tycoon Alisher Usmanov, who is believed to have contributed over £1m. The Turner show in Moscow will take place at a time when political relations between London and Moscow are strained.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Tate Turners in Beijing'