traveldk.com

This Impressionist painting of a garden bathed in sunlight (c.1873) is by one of the founders of the influential movement, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1920). Renoir was apprenticed for four years as a porcelain painter, and later attributed his technical brilliance in handling surface and texture to his early training.

This exquisite study of a dancer in performance (1877–9) by French artist Edgar Degas (1834–1917) is one of a series of his works devoted to the ballet. Unlike some Impressionist painters, Degas placed great emphasis on the importance of drawing, as the superb draughts-manship of this pastel clearly shows.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–90) painted this dazzling landscape (1890) during the last year of his troubled life. He worked feverishly while staying at Les Vessenots, near Auvers in France, producing more than 80 canvases in less than three months.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880– 1938) was an important figure in German Expressionism and a member of the group known as Die Brücke (The Bridge), which began the movement in Dresden. These artists were more interested in expressing feelings through their work, and encouraging emotional responses from their audience, rather than portraying outward reality. Fränzi, seen in this lovely 1910 work, was one of their favourite models.

A founder member, with Wassily Kandinsky, of the influential Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group, German artist Franz Marc (1880–1916) took Expressionism in a new, spiritual direction. Colours, as in this 1912 work, are used symbolically, as are the animals in his paintings, which represent truth, beauty and other ideals.

Liubov Popova (1889–1924) was one of the most innovative artists working in Russia on the eve of the Revolution. This Cubist painting (1915), completed after a period of study in Paris, paves the way for her Painterly Architectonic , an even bolder abstract work exhibited in Room 41.

In this moving 1931 painting by American artist Edward Hopper (1882–1967) the bare furnishings, discarded suitcase and disconsolate posture of the woman holding the railway timetable masterfully suggest loneliness and dislocation – a subject the artist returned to time and again. Hopper is the most important representative of the American social realist school, created in the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression which followed.

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) was one of the most influential abstract artists of the 20th century. Born in The Netherlands, he moved to New York after the outbreak of World War II. The simple geometrical forms and bold colours of this abstract painting (1940–42) celebrate the energy and dynamism of his adopted home.

Famous for his “action paintings” – randomly throwing or pouring paint onto the canvas in an effort to create spontaneity – Jackson Pollock (1912–56) made a huge impact on postwar art in America. This painting (c.1951) is typical of his revolutionary approach.

This revealing study of the museum’s benefactor (1981–2) is the work of Britain’s most distinguished portrait artist, Lucian Freud (b.1922). In the background is Pierrot Content by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), which visitors will find in Room 28.