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Ashmolean Museum

1. Ashmolean Museum

This walk begins at the Ashmolean Museum, the UK’s oldest public

museum. The new modern extension designed by Rick Mather uses

clean, white lines and simple bold shapes. Minimal decoration and

light is the key to this design and Mather clearly follows in the tradition

Le Corbusier created in Twenties. Le Corbusier was inspired by his

friend Picasso’s cubist works, with their emphasis on reducing images

to simple shapes. Le Corbusier wanted to bring that simplicity and

purity into architecture.

Make your way up to the third floor and into gallery 62. Here you will

find an early Picasso called Blue Roofs, Paris which was painted just

before the start of his famous blue period in 1901. Here he was ex-

perimenting with limiting his palette to just a few colours. Right next

to the Picasso is Matisse’s Nude on a Sofa from 1919. In this period

Matisse became increasingly preoccupied with the female form and

throughout his career he would try to perfect his own interpretation

of the nude.

Also to be found in room 62 are works by Picasso’s fellow Cubist

pioneer Braque, and artists who have since been inspired by both Pi-

casso and Matisse, Barbara Hepworth and Howard Hodgkin respec-

tively.

A visual treat taking in town and gownIntroduction.

Length: 2.26 miles

Start: Ashmolean Museum

Finish: Nuffield Collage

Dur: 2 hours

This walk through the dreaming spires of Oxford University encom-passes a diverse and surprising collection of modern art including masterpieces by Picasso and Matisse, a lone iron man overlooking the city centre, a gleaming cubist box and a quartet of bronze lighting masts.

N.B. It is important that when planning to visit art works held within college boundaries you call ahead, as there are times - for example during final exams - when the colleges may be shut.

You can access this walk via your mobile phone on,www.bbc.co.uk/modernmasters

Or text the code ART WALK to 81010, and you’ll receive a link to the Modern Masters mobile site. Texts cost between 12 -15p.

Download the audio version at www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/modernmasters/art-walks/birming-ham/

This is where the art works resided at the time of writing but if you want to double check that a specific art work will be there when you undertake your walk then phone ahead to the Museums and institutions involved. You’ll find links on each of the pages.

2. Turl Street

Another Time

Turn left out of the Ashmolean Museum until you reach the crossroads

and then turn right down Magdalene Street. Take the next left into

Broad Street and continue until you reach the corner of Turl Street.

Look up above Blackwell’s Bookshop to the top of the building and you

will see the figure of a man, looming close to the edge. Another Time

is by popular British sculptor Antony Gormley and was commissioned

by Exeter College, which owns the building.

Gormley uses casts of his own body, in this case in iron, and places

the naked figures in thought-provoking contexts. The figure casts a

stark silhouette against the sky and marks a contrast to the medieval

and gothic figures nearby.

Gormley’s work has taken sculpture of the human body into a new

era, like Matisse and Picasso before him, changing perspectives and

transforming ideas about what it can tell us.

Unbroken Taichi Flow 1

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Maurice Bowra

Carry on down Broad Street, turning left at the crossroads into Parks

Road. A few minutes up the road you will find the entrance to Wadham

College. The college is usually only open after 2pm so do check be-

fore setting out. Go through the porter’s lodge and towards the far left

hand corner of the quad. Turn right into the Fellows Garden and then

take the right path towards the back wall.

As you get near the wall, look right and you will see the extraordi-

nary sculpture of one of Oxford’s most famous Dons: Maurice Bowra.

Bowra was famous for his wit, and this humour is captured by the

sculptor John Doubleday who transforms the conventional seated fig-

ure of more traditional monuments into something modern, amusing

and surreal. It follows in the Salvador Dali tradition of transforming

ordinary objects like chairs or telephones into something entirely new,

using humour to make us approach art from a different perspective

and unlock deeper meaning.

3. Wadham College

Pitt River Museum

Turn right out of Wadham College and continue up Parks Road. On

the corner with South Parks Road you will see the Oxford University

Museum of Natural History. Enter the building through the grand hall

filled with dinosaurs and head to the back until you find the Pitt Rivers

Museum. The museum was founded in 1884 and is dedicated to the

study of archaeology and anthropology. Explore the museum to find

the ‘primitive’ art, which inspired Picasso and Matisse and whose use

of it transformed the history of western art.

Matisse visited North Africa several times and collected African ar-

tefacts; he is, in fact, credited for introducing Picasso to this differ-

ent art form. Both artists found these ancient art forms inspiring, they

were visually simpler and less realistic than the paintings of the day

but seemed to have a more direct impact on the viewer. In this art,

they found a new way to represent the human figure, stylised and

often distorted and the influence of geometric forms. Picasso was

also interested in ancient Spanish art and Matisse in Persian and

Central American textiles – both of which would influence their own

developing styles.

4. Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Pitt Rivers Museum

University of Oxford, Economics Faculty

Leave the Pitt Rivers museum and continue along South Parks Road.

Follow the road to the right into St Cross Road. Just before you turn

left into Manor Road, you will see the Norman Foster designed Uni-

versity of Oxford, Economics Faculty, opened in 2003.

Foster is famous for London’s Gherkin and Millennium Bridge, and

is renowned for his high-tech modern designs using bold, simple

shapes. Here it is the simple cube, beloved of modernist architects

like Le Corbusier and Mies Van Der Rohe both of who were hugely

influential to Foster. It is a testament to the enormous impact of the

Cubist movement that the cube itself remains such an inspirational

and permanent feature of contemporary building design.

5. University of Oxford, Economics Faculty

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6. St Catherine’s College 7. Modern Art Oxford

Achaean St Catherine’s College

Continue down Manor Road and a few paces further, you will reach St Catherine’s College, a brand new college built by Arne Jacobsen in the Sixties. The building in front of you is strikingly modern and characteristic of Jacobsen’s own brand of Danish modernism. It is an all-inclusive approach, with Jacobsen designing everything from light fittings to chairs and the gardens, in a clean and functional style, which we now associate with Scandinavian design. Jacobsen, like Foster and Rick Mather, was influenced by the move towards simple, functional, abstract yet beautifully proportioned design. It was a move that began in the Twenties and owes a debt to Matisse who changed our notion of what was beautiful. It was Matisse who embraced the idea that less is more and it imbued every aspect of his work. The no-tion still influences artists, designers and architects today.

As you approach the building, look to your right and you will see a bold abstract sculpture by Barbara Hepworth called Achaean. When Hepworth visited Picasso’s studios it made a distinct impression. Picasso’s innovations in abstracting images were taken on and ad-vanced by Hepworth.

In the opposite direction to Achaean is a sculpture by Taiwanese artist Ju Ming. Ju Ming is regarded as one of Asia’s most pre-eminent con-temporary artists and this work Unbroken Taichi Flow 1 is an abstract expression of movement and energy. 100 years earlier, Henri Matisse was experimenting with how art can evoke physicality, rhythm and the joy of life itself. In Dance II from 1909-1910, the primal and elemental are celebrated. At the time it was shocking but it paved the way for future artists to explore this new idea.

Retrace your steps back along Manor road and turn left into St Cross

Road. At the end of the road turn left into Longwall Street and con-

tinue until you reach High Street. Walk along High Street turning left

into St Aldates, past the Town Hall and Oxford Museum. Turn right

into Pembroke Street until you reach Modern Art Oxford.

This is the home for contemporary art in Oxford with an ever-changing

array of exhibitions and displays, everything from painting, sculpture

and film to installations and contemporary music. See if you can spot

the influences of our modern masters in today’s artists. Even if you’re

unsure about the artworks on display here, it’ll be a crash course in

today’s contemporary art.

8. Nuffield College

Turn right into Pembroke Street and right again onto St Ebbes Street.

Take the first left onto Queen Street and head past Bonn Square,

which has recently been modernised to include four 15m high bronze

lighting masts that provide a bold and stark addition to the traditional

surroundings. Carry along onto New Road, passing the Oxford Castle

Mound on your way. Before you reach Worcester St, turn right into

Nuffield College.

Go through the entrance, into the garden and you will see Hubert Dal-

wood’s abstract water sculpture Flower Fountain. Just beyond is Peter

Randall Page’s Flayed Stone IV - sculpted from a single piece of gla-

cial stone. Both of these works demonstrate the lasting legacy of the

move from straightforward representation in art towards abstraction.

Picasso and Matisse were at the forefront of this move, shedding the

restraints of the old methods and ushering in a new age where feeling,

emotion and deeper meaning could be accessed by reducing images

down to their simplest and most powerful shapes. This garden is the

perfect place to stop and reflect on the way even our most traditional

cities have been influenced by our Modern Masters.

If you’ve enjoyed this walk then try one of our other Art Walks around

the UK.

Flayed Stone IVFlower FountainModern Art Oxford

Key:

: Walk

: Step

: Landmark

Length: 2.26 miles

Start: Ashmolean Museum

Finish: Nuffield Collage

Dur: 2 hours

Steps:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ashmolean Museum

Turl Street

Wadham College

Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Pitt Rivers Museum

University of Oxford, Economics Faculty

St Catherine’s College

Modern Art Oxford

Nuffield Collage

Route:

Oxford Map

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