Works by Velázquez, Rembrandt, Titian, Michelangelo, Rodin, Van Gogh, Picasso, Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse and Francis Bacon coming to Norwich’s Sainsbury Centre next year.

Diego Velázquez, Portrait of the Count Duke of Olivares, one of the artworks coming to the Sainsbury Centre. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia. (Image: Archant)

First, it was announced a painting by the French artist Manet would go on show at Norwich Castle Museum, and now it has been revealed that Old Masters – some never before seen in the UK – will go on show alongside works by Francis Bacon at the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts at the UEA.

St Petersburg's Hermitage museum is sending the art in exchange for 13 Bacons the Norwich museum loaned to it.

The exhibition Francis Bacon and the Masters brings together more than 25 major works by the British artist alongside those by old and modern masters including Velázquez, Rembrandt, Titian, Michelangelo, Rodin, Van Gogh, Picasso, Cézanne, Gauguin and Matisse.

The exhibition opened at the Hermitage on December 6, when the Sainsbury team was present, and will be on show in Norwich from April 18 to July 26.

Calvin Winner, the Sainsbury Centre's head of collections, said: 'The exhibition focuses on known influences and inspirations on Bacon's work and the Hermitage has agreed to lend the most incredible works of art, many of which will never have been seen before in the UK.'

The exhibition forms the culmination of the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the State Hermitage Museum, and will end the UK/Russia Year of Culture in the UK.

A fully illustrated catalogue in English and Russian will accompany the exhibition, which is curated by Dr Thierry Morel, whose previous exhibition was Houghton Revisited.

Édouard Manet's Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus will be the centrepiece of the show Homage to Manet from January 31 to April 19, at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery.

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