Electric Contrasts: the Art of the Detail

Electric Contrasts: The Art of the Detail brings together photobooks and magazines to show how the revolution of photography in the late 19th and early 20th century changed the history of art. Electric Contrasts takes Kenneth Clark’s landmark 1938 book One Hundred Details from Pictures in the National Gallery as a starting point to illuminate the impact black and white photographic details of Old Master paintings had on new ways of seeing in the early 20th century. The exhibition reveals the anachronistic and provocative juxtapositions of artworks in avant-garde magazines and books which created a radically new vision that would go on to influence television and the internet.

Curated by Altair Brandon-Salmon. Bowes Art & Architecture Library hours: M-Th 9-7pm; Friday 9-5pm; Sunday 12-6pm.