Claude Monet, (1840-1926), The Break-up of Ice on the Seine, 1880-81, oil on canvas, 60 x 99cm [Images: The Swiss Confederation, Federal Office of Culture, Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Rö̈merholz’, Winterthur]

HERE is a unique oppor­tunity to view works from a remarkable Swiss art collection, as the Courtauld hosts a show from the museum and villa of Am Römerholz in Winterthur, 20km north east of Zürich.

With over 200 pieces, from old master paintings and drawings to its Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works, the collection was assembled in the first half of the 20th century by Oskar Reinhart (1885-1965), who was associated with a leading merchant trading company.

Reinhart, who was a contemporary of Samuel Courtauld (1876-1947), founder of The Courtauld Institute of Art, bequeathed his collection and house to the Swiss confederation, and it opened as a public museum in 1970. The two met in 1932.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, (1864-1901), The Clown Cha-U-Kao, 1895, oil on canvas, 75 x 55cm

Now a selection can be seen, in London, on loan during renovations at the museum. The show opens with an oil by Francisco de Goya from the time of the Peninsular War and censor­ship, Still Life with Three Salmon Steaks, c1808-12. It’s bloody, uncomprom­ising, and goes well beyond the culinary.

There’s another unlikely, and disconcerting, subject from Théodore Géricault in the first room of this compact show. A Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank shows a troubled character, looking askance, and away, one of a number of series by the artist of people with mental illness. The sitter has a police cap and hospital ward tag as a “medal”.

In the same room there are paintings by Courbet, Manet, Renoir, Cezanne, Daumier, and a beautifully understated portrait, Corot’s Girl Reading.

Pablo Picasso, (1881-1973), Portrait of Mateu Fernández de Soto, 1901, oil on canvas, 61.3 x 46.5cm

This one work alone is worth the ticket price but, in a second room, there’s Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Clown Cha-U-Kao, Manet’s Au Café (1878) and more.

Every picture is a highlight, in truth, but viewers will be drawn to the juxtapositions and echoes of the Courtauld’s own paintings, with Van Gogh’s A Ward in the Hospital at Arles and The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles (1889). And Cezanne watercolours, versions of Bathers and Mont Sainte-Victoire.

Others of note include a 1901 Picasso, Portrait of Mateu Fernándo de Soto, one of the first of his “blue period” following his friend Carlos Casagemas’s death. And there’s a loose but evocative Monet of the icy River Seine from 1880-81.

• The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition, Goya to Impressionism. Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection, is at The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 0RN till May 26.
https://courtauld.ac.uk/

The modernists

Tarsila do Amaral, Landscape with Bridge, 1931, oil on canvas, 39.5 x 46cm, private collection, courtesy of Almeida & Dale Galeria de Arte [Photo: Sergio Guerini © Tarsila do Amaral S/A]

TARSILA do Amaral’s 1928 painting, Abaporú, of a monstrous figure with giant foot and tiny head, blazing sun, and massive cactus, has become well known the world over as a masterpiece of Brazilian art.

Alas it’s not in the vibrant and colourful new show at the Royal Academy *Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism, it’s in Argentina’s Latin American art museum in Buenos Aries. But a number of works by do Amaral (1886-1973) can be seen here, including a rare self-portrait with orange dress from 1921, landscapes, and more.

She is one of 10 artists featuring in the exhibition which aims to capture “the diversity of Brazilian art” from the 1910s to the 1970s, with more than 130 works, many from private collections, and many never seen before in the UK. It’s organised by the Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, with the RA, and the experts say, “Collectively the works take the visitor on a journey through 70 years of a new art in Brazil which moves from figuration to abstraction.”

So the scope of its content is wide, but is seen as reflecting the desire of artists to define a modern Brazilian identity, free from external influences. Yet many had seen developments in Europe first-hand and the show embraces that nice tension. There are plenty of portraits, in many styles, rural scenes, celebrations of workers, dancers, the poor, the oppressed. And abstraction.
Eclectic in the extreme.

*At the RA, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD, until April. For full details see: www.royalacademy.org.uk