Analysing Cubism explores the early decades of Cubism and features the work of such celebrated Cubist artists as Albert Gleizes, Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett. The exhibition focuses especially on the Continental milieu in which Hone, Jellett and other Irish artists worked in the 1920s and ‘30s, learning from and contributing to the development of European Modernism.

Analysing Cubism takes its title from the early years of the movement, sometimes referred to as ‘Analytical Cubism’. However, the exhibition extends its scope to the end of the Second World War, a watershed in modern art when the focus shifted from Paris to New York. It  looks at the work of a number of pioneering Irish artists who travelled to France and further afield to study modern art. The exhibition seeks to place these artists in context, examining the influence of their teachers, as well as exploring the work of some of the leading international exponents of Cubism.

The exhibition focuses on the Irish artists May Guinness, Jack Hanlon, Evie Hone, Mainie Jellett, Norah McGuinness and Mary Swanzy, and on their English counterparts Paul Egestorff and Elizabeth Rivers. It also includes work by European painters such as Georges Braque, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Henri Hayden, André Lhote and Pablo Picasso. The largest concentration of work in the exhibition is by Gleizes, Hone, Lhote and Jellett – in recognition of the extensive influence that these artists had on modern Irish abstract painting.

The exhibition will tour to the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, from 20 June to 1 September and to the F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Studio, Banbridge, Co. Down, from 13 September to 30 November. The exhibition is organised by the Crawford Art Gallery in partnership with IMMA. The exhibition includes major loans from the National Gallery of Ireland.

Analysing Cubism is presented as part of the programme of visual arts events celebrating Ireland’s Presidency of the European Union and is supported by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The exhibition is presented with the support of the French Embassy in Ireland and The Irish Times.