‘I do believe that Italy really purifies and ennobles all who visit her. She is the school as well as the playground of the world’. E.M. Forster.

​Although the Grand Tour tradition had taken root in Britain several hundred years earlier, the lure of Italy endured long into the twentieth-century, with many artists and writers travelling to the Bel Paese in search of inspiration. This exhibition brings together a selection of such works by Modern British Artists. Be it in their interest in the beauty of the natural and living landscapes, or pilgrimages to learn from the Old Masters, these works pay testament to the myriad ways in which Italy continued to influence British artists in the Modern era.