Drawing from Pallant House Gallery’s permanent collection, this exhibition explores the work of a group of artists during and after the Second World War, including Paul Nash and John Piper.

Intended to complement Pallant House’s celebration of John Minton, this display offers a fuller picture of the artist's environment by looking at the work of his friends and contemporaries: Paul Nash, John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Prunella Clough, Robert Colquhoun, John Craxton, Robert MacBryde and Keith Vaughan.

While Neo-Romanticism was never an organised movement as such, the term came to be used in reference to these artists’ personal and often poetic style, which after the cultural isolation of the Second World War found a sense of romance within British art or, as Piper described it, represented ‘a vision that can see in these things something significant beyond ordinary significance.’

This exhibition situates these artists in the context of each other and in this post-war withdrawal from international exchange, which saw a resurgence of a romantic and wistful sensibility. It looks at the different approaches of the older and younger members of the set, and the influence of foreign travel on those who, after the restrictions of war, were eager to head to the Continent.