Shock of the New

The Ulster Museum's collection of twentieth century and contemporary art is one of the most respected and long-established in the UK and Ireland. In the 1920s, the Belfast Art Gallery and Museum began collecting modern art, continuing throughout the 1950s and 1960s - keeping pace with one of the most radical and innovative periods in the history of modern art. 

To celebrate the ambition of the early years of collecting modern art in Belfast, 'The Shock of the New' presents work spanning five decades, beginning with Stanley Spencer's The Betrayal, 1923, and ending with Edward McGuire's Portrait of Seamus Heaney, commissioned in 1973.