For its autumn exhibition, Robilant presents a major survey of still life painting, opening during Frieze Week. The ambitious show charts over 400 years of still life, tracing the changing essence and status of the genre from the 16th century to the present.

The exhibition includes many of the pre-eminent masters of the still life genre, with works by Willem Claesz. Heda, Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, Michelangelo Cerquozzi, Giovanni Battista Recco, Francisco de Zurbarán, Victoria Dubourg, Henri Fantin-Latour, Odilon Redon, Pierre Bonnard, Philip Guston and Andy Warhol from private collections as well as on loan from notable institutions such as the Female Artists of the Mougins Museum (FAMM), France. These will sit alongside new commissions by rising voices in the contemporary art world, including Poppy Jones and Asher Liftin. Robilant will publish a catalogue to accompany the exhibition, written by Yale professor and art historian Carol Armstrong.

For a subject so relatable and appealing, the humble still life spent much of its existence overlooked in favour of history painting and portraiture. Indeed, it ranked lowest within the ‘Hierarchy of Genres’ espoused by the European Academies of the 19th century. It was often thought of as a subject most suitable for amateur artists – and one of the few appropriate for women – yet protagonists of still life have produced some of the most visually striking and technically skilled works of centuries gone by. Across time, artists have been enticed by the challenges and opportunities inherent to the genre; the pursuit of a deceptively vivid realism, of celebrating materiality and elevating the quotidian, of finding and expressing themselves through the objects they depict.

With its roots in classical antiquity, our exhibition picks up the narrative of the European still life tradition in the 16th century. From the early proponents from Germany and the Low Countries, the genre has constantly evolved: flourishing alongside the growing collector classes of the 17th century, refined and expanded by French artists in the 18th century, transformed by the visionary approaches of 20th-century artists, and arriving today as a genre that holds a relevant and nuanced place in contemporary art.