An exhibition of international artists working across painting, photography, drawing, film installation and sculpture from the 19th century to today. 

Featuring: Bas Jan Ader, Pierre Bonnard, Lisa Brice, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Samuel Fosso, Peter Hujar, Kahlil Joseph, Zoe Leonard, Glenn Ligon, Toyin Ojih Odutola, The Otolith Group, Jennifer Packer, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Walter Sickert, Édouard Vuillard, David Wojnarowicz and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. 

To Improvise A Mountain: Curated by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition curated by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye with Hayward Gallery Touring.

Euan Uglow (1932 – 2000) was one of Britain’s most significant 20th century painters, known for his sustained observation and painstaking technique, often taking months, if not years, to complete a work. Each picture pursues a particular idea, seeking to depict the visual reality of the concept, expressed with radiant colours and light. Uglow often had three or four active ‘set-ups’ in his Battersea studio, using particular rectangular compositions in an attempt ‘to paint a structured painting full of controlled and therefore potent emotion’. Almost mathematical in his methods, Uglow left markings on his canvases that reveal his processes, including how the passage of time affected the depiction of his subjects. Best known for his large-scale nudes, Uglow also made landscapes in the summer light of the Mediterranean and still lifes, taking up the challenge of painting materials such as plastic, as well as organic material in gradual decay, such as fruit.

Curated by Catherine Lampert, this will be the first solo exhibition of Uglow’s work in a UK public institution for 20 years. Featuring over 30 of his most ambitious paintings, as well as drawings and examples of work by his artistic influences, Paul Cézanne, Alberto Giacometti and his former tutors William Coldstream, Victor Pasmore and Claude Rogers.