‘Paradise Lost’, in reference to the poem by John Milton, will present a view of the First and Second World Wars and their aftermath which characterised much of the innovative British art of the twentieth century.

The art during this period represents a powerful paradox of mourning and recovery, expressed in psychologically-charged paintings of sinister landscapes. Artists such as Ayrton, Minton, Nash and Piper returned to naturalism, infused with a kind of longing for an impossible reunion with the past, uncontaminated by modernity.

"The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head"
W. B. Yeats