28 June - 28 August 2006
Detail from Alexandre Abel de Pujol, ''''Self Portrait'''', 1806

The artist as a rebel battling against society, a tortured and misunderstood genius, has a powerful hold on our collective imagination.

This exhibition traces the development of this idea, from the birth of Romanticism through to the early 20th century and the avant-garde.

Bringing together works by many of the great artists of the period, including Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rodin, Picasso and Schiele, it explores how they responded to Romantic ideas about creativity and deliberately cast themselves as outsiders and visionaries.