British artists hold their own at Picasso show

That is the claim from Tate Britain curator Chris Stephens who has worked on a new show exploring the Spaniard's impact on seven British artists: Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Ben Nicholson, David Hockney, Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis and Graham Sutherland.

"The surprising thing is that the British artists do hold their own. We can see clearly in this exhibition that they are taking something from Picasso but they're not just doing Picassos," said Dr Stephens.

The show, which opens at Tate Britain on Wednesday, presents many works in pairs to illustrate the impact of Picasso (1881-1973).

Of about 150 exhibits, there are more than 60 paintings by Picasso including some of the earliest of his works to be shown and collected in Britain. Yet one of the embarrassments of British art is how his work was spurned for decades by all but a small band of supporters led by ICA founder Roland Penrose and the Bloomsbury group.

Dr Stephens said his art must have seemed challenging. "He was terribly neglected and Tate didn't buy a Picasso until 1930 and even then it was a flower, but neither did the French state."

A key turning point was a major show at the Tate in 1960 which attracted 460,000 visitors - a figure the gallery does not expect to match this year.

Dr Stephens said: "It's a history of taste and the Establishment, the way Picasso started off as the minority interest and became a huge figure."

Yet he only visited the UK twice, in 1919 to design sets and costumes for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and in 1950 for a peace congress.

Picasso and Modern British Art, sponsored by British Land, JCA Group and RLM Finsbury, runs at Tate Britain until July 15, admission £14.