Conversation piece

Another Country: London Painters in Dialogue with Modern Italian Art
Estorick Collection, 39a Canonbury Square, London N1, until 20 June

In recent years there has been something of a vogue for encouraging contemporary artists to respond to particular works by artists of the past, and to make paintings as part of that response. The prime example of this curatorial trend was Encounters: New Art from Old, staged by the National Gallery in 2000, and including such painters as Balthus, Patrick Caulfield, R.B. Kitaj, Cy Twombly and Euan Uglow. The exhibition featured a number of bizarre pairings (Uglow and Monet was one) and some highly fruitful ones, such as Leon Kossoff with Rubens, but the thrust of the show involved new work being produced around a specific painting in the National’s collection. The Estorick’s fascinating exhibition is less prescriptive than that.

The idea for the show comes from Lino Mannocci (born 1945), an Italian painter resident in England since 1968, with something of a reputation as a mover and shaker in artistic circles. An able writer (he compiled the catalogue raisonné of Claude’s etchings), Mannocci also curates exhibitions. He is the leading light of a group of artist friends who are bound together by no ties of style or belief, but share a commitment to reinterpreting figurative painting for the 21st century. The current excursion is not the first time this group has exhibited together — in 2007 they showed in Bergamo, and there have been other related displays. The idea of a circle of painters being mutually supportive is an appealing one in this self-serving and competitive world, and it is even more gratifying to discover work of so high a calibre being so equably and informally offered to the public view.