L'Orientaliste

TATE BRITAIN- BRITISH ORIENTALIST PAINTING 4 JUNE - 31 AUGUST 2008

Orientalist art is enjoying a critical reappraisal, which in London is expressed both by increased activity in the orientalist art market and by the forthcoming major exhibition at the London TATE gallery entitled "THE LURE OF THE EAST: British Orientalist Painting 1830-1925".

The exhibition opens on 4 June and run to the end of August 2008. It is organised in assosiation with the Yale Centre for British Art in the USA, which has the largest and most comphrensive collection of British art outside the UK. The exhibition first opened at the Yale Centre, in February and after its London run will travel in October to the Pera Museum, Instanbul, after which it will be transferred to the Sharjah Art Museum for the period between February and April 2009.

The exhibition is the first to survey the history of British painters' representations of the Middle East from 17th century to the early years of the 20th century. The heyday of Orientalist art was the 19th century, when steam engines were first used in travel, making it possible for artist to travel to the Middle East easily. They often reached their destination by way of Spain, Morocco, Greece and the Balkans.

There are more than 120 paintings, prints and drawings on show, lent by galleries and private collections around the worls, The exhibition features major artists such as William Holman Hunt, Lord Leighton John frederick Lewis and Richard Dadd.