Show focuses on evolution of painting styles

An exhibition at Aurora Museum in Shanghai, Masters of Western Art: The Collection of the Rockefeller Art Foundation, is the first showcase by the US institution since it participated in a signing ceremony for major foreign-funded projects organized by the Shanghai municipal government in 2020.

On display are more than 100 works, from the late 1800s to the early 2000s, by five artists－Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Amedeo Modigliani, Giorgio Morandi and Arman (born Armand Pierre Fernandez).

The exhibition, which opened on July 8, will run to Sept 25.

"Impressionists in Western art, such as Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh, have been extremely popular in China, and we have selected five artists in the periods after impressionism," Huang Shengzhi, director of the Aurora Museum, said at the opening of the exhibition.

"From Picasso, the founder of cubism, to Dali, a pioneer of surrealism, to Modigliani, a postimpressionist, to Morandi, a representative of metaphysical painting, to Arman, a nouveau realism artist who used to disassemble musical instruments to create sculptures, we are presenting the evolution of art from impressionism to modernism."