Two Picasso portraits never previously exhibited in the UK and a monumental Man Ray painting not shown here for more than 50 years are among works from the Reuben Collection now on view at The Courtauld Gallery.
A new display, Modern Painting from the Courtauld and Reuben Collections, brings works by Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Man Ray, Juan Gris and Fernand Léger into conversation with paintings from The Courtauld’s own collection by Paul Cézanne and Amedeo Modigliani.
The display is the latest development in a long-term partnership between The Courtauld and the Reuben Foundation, launched in 2025 to make works from the private Reuben Collection publicly accessible and extend The Courtauld’s celebrated Impressionist and Post-Impressionist displays further into 20th-century art.
Among the highlights are three paintings by Picasso, including two portraits of his partners that have never previously been exhibited in the UK.
Portrait of a Woman (Marie-Thérèse in a Blue Beret) (1937) and Head of a Woman (Dora Maar) (1939) show Picasso reshaping conventional portraiture through two very different images of Marie-Thérèse Walter and Dora Maar. They are joined by Still Life with Basket of Fruit and Flowers (1942), painted in wartime Paris.
There’s also a rare opportunity to encounter Man Ray the painter rather than the photographer.
His monumental Black Widow — earlier titled Invention-Nativity and Nativity — was painted in New York in 1915 and has not been exhibited in the UK for more than 50 years. One of Man Ray’s significant early paintings, it combines Cubism and painted collage in a large-scale figure composition.
The display begins a little earlier with Cézanne’s Turning Road (1905) and Modigliani’s Nude (c.1916) from The Courtauld collection. Their experiments with colour, form and the figure lead into Cubist works by Juan Gris and Fernand Léger from 1914–18, showing how rapidly painting was being pulled apart and reconstructed during the opening decades of the century.
The Reuben Collection also brings a substantial dose of Magritte to Somerset House.
Works include L’empire des lumières (The Dominion of Light) and L’ami intime (The Intimate Friend), with its familiar bowler-hatted figure interrupted by a wine glass and baguette.
Also on display is Le Domaine d’Arnheim (1949), in which a mountainous landscape is seen through a shattered window — another characteristically slippery Magritte image in which what we’re looking at and how we’re looking at it become difficult to separate.
The partnership goes considerably further than loans to the Gallery. In October 2025, The Courtauld announced what it described as the largest financial gift in its history from the Reuben Foundation. The funding is supporting the development of The Courtauld’s new Strand campus, due to open in 2029.
The arrangement also continues a tradition embedded in The Courtauld from its beginnings. Samuel Courtauld’s own collecting and philanthropy helped establish the institution and its collection in the 1930s; almost a century later, privately held works are once again being used to expand what the public can see on its walls.
Modern Painting from the Courtauld and Reuben Collections is now open at The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, London.
