Lucian Freud, Woman with Eyes Closed, 2002, 30,5x25,4 cm, Collection Triton Foundation.

In the autumn of 2012, in the year of its twentieth anniversary, the Kunsthal Rotterdam is to present a remarkable exhibition entitled ‘Avant-Gardes', comprising works from the Triton Foundation collection. This exhibition marks the very first public showing of the carefully and lovingly assembled Triton Collection. Over the last twenty years, this private collection has developed into one with an international reputation and which comprises representative works by the most important and influential artists of the late nineteenth century to the present day.

From Picasso to Lucian Freud

In close collaboration with the Triton Foundation, over a hundred and fifty works of international top quality have been selected from over one hundred different artists from the vanguard, avant-garde and Western art movements. Works can be seen by great innovators such as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondriaan and Yves Klein, as well as other avant-gardists who departed from the prevailing artistic rules adhered to by their predecessors and went on to experiment with new forms of expression. These artists include George Braque, Francis Picabia, Willem de Kooning, Elsworth Kelly, Frank Stella and many others. Enhanced with works by great masters such as Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh, the Avant-Gardes exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of developments in modern art.

Visual Associations across Time

The exhibition comprises works from almost every significant art movement, from Impressionist work by Monet to the Expressionism of Max Beckmann and the Cubist imagery of Juan Gris. Work can also be seen by artists from lesser known movements such as Les Nabis, which included Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard, and by the Russian Constructivists Wassily Kandinsky and El Lissitsky. Visual associations and unusual combinations of paintings, drawings and images featuring similarities in style, material or character serve as the leitmotif of this exhibition. Such combinations allow the exhibition to illustrate the unlimited scope and expressiveness of visual art across time. Examples include a modest selection of works by Gauguin, Bonnard and Hans Bellmer, a surprising combination of pieces by Emil Nolde and Alex Katz, and the odd but appealing couple that Andy Warhol and Marc Quinn make.

The Triton Foundation

The Triton Foundation aims to make its existing collection and new material accessible to the general public. By generously loaning works from the collection to museums and temporary exhibitions all over the world, and for lengthy periods of time, all the works from the collection can be seen in public.