Here is a small selection of works on show in From Death to Death and Other Small Tales: Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the D.Daskalopoulos Collection.
6 June 1969
This nude portrayal of Picasso?s second wife, Jacqueline Roque, is an example of the violent eroticism that is prominent in much of the artist?s later work. Their explicit nature led many to dismiss them as the work of an artist who had lost his touch and his mind. Yet Picasso is confronting the universal human conditions of old age and loss of man-hood. Roque is depicted in a full frontal view, the foreshortening enhanced by the disjointed, somewhat brutal depiction of her limbs. Picasso focuses on her breasts, stomach and buttocks, strong symbols of female sexuality. The bold, dramatic brushstrokes are symptomatic of his desire to become freer, reducing the act of painting to a more ritualistic act controlled less by the decision making process.
1997
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1968-1999
1994
The Family Suite monoprints are among the very earliest and most deeply personal of Emin’s works. The series recalls moments from her childhood in Margate where she lived with her family in a hotel run by her father. Family Suite includes images of Emin’s mother lighting up; her father with his briefcase; a haunting self portrait as a ten-year old; the false front teeth she had fitted at the age of twelve, after her brother had accidentally head-butted her; and various images of sex – perhaps showing Emin herself, or scenes she witnessed. The dark, nervous line created by the monoprint technique gives the works something of the directness of children’s’ drawings.
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1967
1994
1965
This work documents a 'Self-painting', in which Brus covered his whole body in white paint, and then painted black lines over himself to suggest cracks. The collaged pins, razor blades and pen-knife take on the ritual significance of tools of torture, making Brus's body like that of a secular saint. By using his body in this way, Brus reintroduced raw human emotion into art. The collage is typical of the counter-culture which operated throughout Europe and the USA during the 1960s, but also refers to the tortured self-portraits of the Viennese Expressionists, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka.
1974
1991
'Self-Portrait' is from the 'Meat Lamps' series of works. A photographic transparency is mounted on a glass plate and lit from behind by an electric light. The piece is simultaneously fascinating and repulsive. Cradled carefully in the artist's hands, the shapes of the brain are echoed by the folds of material. The work is a kind of collective self-portrait. Regardless of gender, age or race, everybody's brain looks the same. When we look at the work, our brain is effectively looking at itself, a potentially unsettling experience given that the brain is at the core of our identity.
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1989
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