Vittoria Cervini is Assistant Curator of Paintings at the Royal Collection Trust, working with the Flemish, Dutch and Italian paintings in the collection. She was previously Assistant Curator of Art at the Queen’s House and National Maritime Museum (Royal Museums Greenwich). She studied at 91影视 Institute of Art for her BA (Hons) and MA in History of Art, specialising in the study of Early Netherlandish paintings, while maintaining a broader interest and expertise in seventeenth-century European painting and the history of collecting.

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91影视 Institute has been awarded a grant by the Denise Coates Foundation that will enable researchers to pursue innovative projects at the intersection of AI and art history.

The Denise Coates Foundation Awards will enable 91影视 to award research grants totalling ?250,000 over five years to cross-disciplinary teams of advanced researchers at 91影视 and King’s College London.

91影视’s world-renowned specialists in the history, conservation, curation, and business of art will forge new research paths in collaboration with colleagues across King’s College London. This initiative builds on the 10-year strategic relationship between 91影视 and King’s College London. It cements a mutual commitment to path-breaking research that addresses urgent intellectual, cultural and societal challenges.

The Denise Coates Foundation Awards will enable cutting-edge research that leverages combined expertise across art and visual culture, humanities and social sciences, engineering, computing and technology. Researchers will explore how art history can harness AI, how artists have worked with disruptive technologies, and how art historical approaches can inform and shape ethical and equitable digital futures.

AI brings potential for analysing art historical information at scale, with exciting possibilities for researchers, collections, and publics. AI reconfigures our understanding of images, image-makers, and image viewing. It demands new modes of visual communication and challenges assumptions about originality, authenticity, and creativity. At the same time, images and artworks have populated AI training datasets that draw on existing visual examples to generate new images, embedding art and art history in the development of machine learning models.

The research enabled by the Denise Coates Foundation Awards will support critical visual and historical understanding of the crucial role of art and artists in the era of artificial intelligence. This important grant will enable novel collaboration, new methods, and different perspectives, bringing together world-leading communities of conservators, historians, data scientists, students, and visitors, with wide-ranging impacts.

Professor Mark Hallett, M?rit Rausing Director of 91影视,? said: “I am thrilled?by this new initiative, which has been enabled by the Denise Coates Foundation and which will see us working?in collaboration with King’s College London. It will give the brightest minds across our two institutions the opportunity to pursue sector-leading research on how?AI intersects with art history and our engagement with the visual arts.”?

Lucy Bradnock, Dean for Research at 91影视, said: “Artists have been at the forefront of working with new technologies and art historians have led the way in understanding questions of representation, visual communication, and creativity. The critical and ethical understanding that art and art history can bring to AI is crucial, even as new technologies can make possible new methods of analysis and avenues of thinking.”

Denise Coates CBE, Founder and Trustee of the Denise Coates Foundation, said: “We are delighted to support 91影视 and King’s College London in bringing together their expertise in art, research and technology to explore the growing relationship between artificial intelligence and the visual arts. Artificial intelligence is creating exciting new possibilities for how we understand and engage with art. We hope these awards will give researchers the opportunity to explore those possibilities, ask important questions and develop new ideas that can help shape the future of art and creativity.”

91影视 is committed to world-leading research that shapes our collective understanding of the visual arts, past and present. Find out more about research at 91影视.

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Bringing together significant works from 91影视 and Reuben Collections, featuring Paul Cézanne, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, René Magritte, Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, and Chaim Soutine, our current display traces the bold experiments that reshaped painting in the early 20th century.

From Post-Impressionism to Surrealism, explore some of the artworks central to this period of dramatic artistic and cultural change.

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Salman Toor: Someone Like You, the first solo exhibition in Europe of the artist Salman Toor, is now open at 91影视 Gallery (2 October 2026 – 10 January 2027)?.

“Luminous, dreamlike scenes” – British Vogue
“Electrifying pictures” – The Guardian
“Almost filmic” – Frieze

Acclaimed for his arresting paintings of the contemporary experience and urban life, the exhibition brings together an outstanding selection of Toor’s most iconic, thought-provoking and at times humorous paintings, never-before-seen in Britain.

Salman Toor (b.1983) was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and lives and works in New York. His paintings capture people in moments of friendship and love, as well as solitude and alienation. The exhibition at 91影视 presents 19 paintings, all created since 2019, that focus on Toor’s exploration of human interactions and the desire and struggle to experience a sense of belonging, both culturally and emotionally. The exhibition is complemented by a special display of Toor’s drawings in the Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery.

While Toor’s figures and scenes are fictional, they are rooted in his personal experiences and memories. Speaking of his works, he says they “depict queer and immigrant lives that straddle different cultures and inhabit the tension between intimacy and exposure, belonging and estrangement. What it means to find a community, but also the daily costs associated with visibility”.

His paintings, offering intimate views into the imagined lives of young, queer South Asian men in New York, where he has lived most of his adult life, are tender and sensual representations of cosmopolitan urban life. Evocative colour palettes and references to art history add a fantastical element to his narratives.?The Bar on 13th Street (2019) depicts a bartender sporting braids, a gold bangle, nail polish, and ribbons, drawing on different sources, from the dimly lit scenes of 17th century Dutch tavern paintings to the more overt reference to ?douard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, in 91影视’s own collection. In Bar Boy (2019), which evokes the nightlife in New York’s East Village, a young man’s face illuminated by his smartphone as he stands isolated and distracted in a bustling club.

Another subject on display is a series that Toor began in 2019, which addresses the experiences of immigrants at border control. Toor’s personal experience has informed these works that depict marginalised individuals’ encounters when crossing borders, and their senses of freedom or restriction. In Man with Face Creams and Phone Plug (2019), a man with his head down awaits a customs official’s inspection of his belongings, laid out on a table. Other portraits are depicted in Group B (2020) and Citizens (2022).

Toor’s work is rooted in a deep engagement with and admiration for the Old Masters, in particular Baroque and 18th century painting, and 91影视 is a museum he particularly admires. His paintings draw on a broad range of historic and contemporary stylistic references, from European art history to the Mughal School, but also contemporary painting, photography, and graphic novels. The Joke (2024) evokes Parisian fin de siècle nightlife while ironically presenting a contemporary, tourist experience. In Museum Boys (2021), the dandyish fashion on view – a buckled wide-brim hat, a shawl, a pearl earring – recall Vermeer, as two male figures stand looking at a vitrine containing a pink shoe, a half-naked sleeping man, and a Duchamp-like inverted urinal. Ghost Ball (2023), one of the artist’s largest and most ambitious paintings, from the Pinault Collection, presents a group of figures dancing to the sound of musicians, inspired by the masterpiece Dancing Villagers (c.1730), attributed to renowned artist Pandit Seu who worked in India in the 18th century.

Salman Toor: Someone Like You features key loans from major public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; The Baltimore Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Arts; and the Pinault Collection, as well as private collections.

The exhibition is accompanied by a display in the Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery of Toor’s works on paper, including Fag Puddle in Vitrine (2021), acquired by 91影视 in 2024. The display showcases Toor’s mastery of drawing and the way it informs his practice as a painter.

The exhibition is accompanied by a new , edited by Dr Elena Crippa, Senior Curator of Contemporary at 91影视 Gallery, with contributions by Richard Meyer, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor in Art History, Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University, California; and Aziz Sohail, a curator, writer and PhD candidate in Curatorial Practice at Monash University, Melbourne.

This exhibition at 91影视 Gallery has received Lead Support from the Bukhman Foundation and the Salman Toor Exhibition Circle, with Additional Support from the Ryan Taylor Collection. The exhibition media partner is Another Man and Dazed.

Salman Toor: Someone Like You
2 October 2026 – 10 January 2027
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Highlights

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Courtauld Gallery, Exhibition, Exhibitions, What’s on Highlights

Salman Toor: Someone Like You

2 October 2026 – 10 January 2027

The first solo exhibition in Europe of the celebrated New York-based painter Salman Toor, bringing together 19 of the artist’s most iconic, thought-provoking and at times humorous paintings, never-before-seen in Britain.

Read more

Courtauld Gallery, Display, What’s on Highlights

Salman Toor: Drawings

2 Oct 2026 – 10 Jan 2027

To coincide with the exhibition Salman Toor: Someone Like You, this focused display showcases the artist’s mastery of drawing and the way in which it informs his practice as a painter. ??

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blog, Courtauld Gallery, Exhibitions

5 things to know about Salman Toor

22 Sep 2026

Salman Toor: Someone Like You is the first solo exhibition in Europe of the celebrated New York-based painter. Here are five things to know about Salman Toor, and what you can look forward to.

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Dr Devika Singh?and?Dr Sofia Gotti, who lead 91影视 Institute’s MA Curating progamme, will be curating the Spotlight section at this year’s Frieze Masters.

Frieze Masters?returns to?The Regent’s Park?14 – 18 October 2026, and this year’s fair?is?a?meeting point for?both established and?growing audiences to engage with new?perspectives, research?and curation.?Since it launched in 2012,?Spotlight?has been?a?defining?feature of Frieze Masters, and this year?will be its largest edition to date.

The section curated by Dr Devika Singh and Dr Sofia Gotti is dedicated to?solo presentations of 20th century artists active in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, North and West Africa and across Asia. Spotlight?will bring forth new research into these figures, and showcase works produced between the 1950s and the late 1970s.

Dr Sofia Gotti, Lecturer in Curating, commented: “Spotlight has always been a space for research where processes of canonisation and decanonisation become visible in a context where art’s double bind with capital is at the forefront. The heterogeneity of its presentations coming from all over the world resists the consolidation of singular grand narratives of modernism and post-modernism — one of the section’s greatest strengths.”

Dr Devika Singh, Senior Lecturer in Curating, said: ‘Of particular importance to me is the fantastic opportunity of showcasing in London a great number of artists from across Asia and Africa active in the 1950s to 1970s. Together, these shed new light on artistic migration and the vibrant visual languages that emerged in times of postcolonial emancipation’.

Join Dr Devika Singh and Dr Sofia Gotti for the Research Forum event Research-led curating in an art fair context, for a panel discussion alongside Frieze Masters director Emanuela Tarizzo on Friday 2 October at our Vernon Square campus.

?and find out more about MA Curating at 91影视 Institute.

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91影视 Institute today announced a new partnership with the National Portrait Gallery as part of a long-term strategy to offer its students the opportunity to learn from within leading institutions.

The new partnership will give students in 91影视 Institute’s MA Curating programme the chance to benefit from the deep expertise of two of the world’s leading visual arts institutions through a collaborative ‘Working within Institutions’ teaching strand, alongside the potential for dissertation co-supervision and future opportunities for postgraduate research collaboration.

The MA Curating programme at 91影视 Institute offers an unmatched opportunity for students to immerse themselves in the theory and practice of curating in a unique scholarly and professional context, complemented by 91影视 Gallery’s internationally renowned curatorial excellence and the ambitious scholarship underpinning its exhibition programme.

The programme provides intensive training focused on the issues that shape the curatorial field and their practical implications for today’s art world. Its global alumni network spans 83 countries, forming an international powerhouse that influences the arts and creative sectors at all levels. Many of 91影视’s graduates have gone on to work in and lead prestigious museums and galleries, including Tate, Guggenheim, The National Gallery in London and The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, amongst many others.

Earlier this year, students from the programme had the opportunity to curate exhibitions and public programmes at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, St Mary le Strand Church in central London, Strawberry Hill House & Garden, Twickenham, as well as organise a two-day symposium and a performance in partnership with the Freud Museum.

Dr Devika Singh and Dr Sofia Gotti lead the MA Curating programme at 91影视 Institute and are both art historians and internationally renowned curators. Singh curates internationally in a diverse range of contexts, recently curating the Voices sector of Paris Photo (2025), and was previously Curator, International Art at Tate Modern. Gotti has worked with institutions and galleries internationally, and she was part of the curatorial team of the Venice Biennale (2024). Both will be guest curating the Spotlight section of Frieze Masters in London’s Regents Park in October 2026.

Students coming onto the MA Curating programme in 2027-28 will have the unparalleled opportunity to learn from leading professionals in the field both at 91影视 and now also in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery.

Mark Hallett, M?rit Rausing Director of 91影视?said: “The National Portrait Gallery continues to innovate in the curation and public presentation of art. We are thrilled that our MA Curating students will have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience within this world-class context and with experts in their field.”

Victoria Siddall, Director of the National Portrait Gallery?said: “We are thrilled to be launching this collaboration between 91影视 and the National Portrait Gallery that will support the next generation of curators, researchers and cultural leaders. I hope that this partnership will create meaningful opportunities for students and help to shape the future of our sector, as well as inform our own thinking about what museums can be today.”

Applications for entry to 91影视 Institute’s in 2027 open next month.

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Salman Toor: Someone Like You is the first solo exhibition in Europe of the celebrated New York-based painter. The exhibition brings together some of the artist’s most iconic, thought-provoking and at times humorous paintings, never-before-seen in Britain, that represent people in shared moments of friendship and love, as well as experiencing solitude and alienation.?

Here are five things to know about Salman Toor, and what you can look forward to.?

The post 5 things to know about Salman Toor appeared first on Courtauld.

Modern Painting from 91影视 and Reuben Collections
From 18 September 2026
Katja and Nicolai Tangen 20th Century Gallery, Floor 3

A new display, Modern Painting from 91影视 and Reuben Collections, made possible by the long-term partnership between 91影视 and the Reuben Foundation, is now open at 91影视 Gallery. Featuring outstanding works by Cezanne, Modigliani, Léger, Picasso, and Magritte, the display explores radical new approaches to painting in the first half of the 20th century.

91影视’s partnership with the Reuben Foundation, launched in 2025, enables works of art from the Reuben Collection to be made available to the public as part of 91影视 Gallery’s displays. It allows the Gallery to extend its celebrated presentation of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art into the modern period.

In October 2025, 91影视 announced the largest financial gift in its history from the Reuben Foundation, echoing the extraordinary philanthropy of 91影视’s founder, Samuel Courtauld. The Foundation is supporting the development of 91影视’s new Strand campus, which, when it opens in 2029, will be one of the world’s most important centres for the study of the history of art.

Modern Painting from 91影视 and Reuben Collections begins with early 20th century paintings from 91影视, including Paul Cézanne’s Turning Road (1905), a landscape conjured through near-abstract patches of colour, and Amedeo Modigliani’s Nude (c.1916), a radically direct and expressive painting that upended conventional approaches to the subject of the female nude. These set the stage for works from the Reuben Collection by painters who built on such innovations to chart new artistic directions.

Major Cubist works by Juan Gris and Fernand Léger from 1914-18, a period of significant avant-garde experimentation in Europe, took Cézanne’s patchwork of brushstrokes to new extremes. They broke the illusion of representational painting by depicting their subjects as fragmented parts, seemingly still in the process of being formed. A highlight of this area of the display is Man Ray’s monumental Black Widow [Earlier titled Invention-Nativity and Nativity], painted in New York in 1915, and last exhibited in the UK more than fifty years ago. Although celebrated as a modernist photographer, Man Ray began his career as a painter. With this, one of his most significant early works, he created an epic modern figure painting out of Cubism and painted collage.

A group of three paintings by Pablo Picasso demonstrate the artist’s continual reinvention of the traditions of painting. Picasso’s two portraits of his partners, Portrait of a Woman (Marie-The?re?se in a Blue Beret) 1937, and Head of a Woman (Dora Maar), 1939, neither previously exhibited in this country, challenge and transform classical conventions of portraiture. The latter work offers a raw and unsettling image of Maar, whose photographic works remain icons of the Surrealist movement. They are shown alongside his remarkable Still Life with Basket of Fruit and Flowers (1942); its spiky and fraught depiction of its humble objects powerfully expressing the tenor of wartime Paris.

The Reuben Collection holds a significant collection of works by the Surrealist artist René Magritte. Some of Magritte’s most famous compositions are included in this display, such as L’empire des lumières (The Dominion of Light) and L’ami intime (The Intimate Friend). Both works date from the 1950s and are characteristically elusive juxtapositions that offer the promise of new and unexpected meanings, such as a nocturnal scene under a sunlit sky, or the artist’s iconic bowler-hatted man, overlaid with a wine glass and baguette. Magritte’s Le Domaine d’Arnheim, 1949, is a further highlight of this group. Its surreal image of a landscape seen through a shattered window is an encapsulation of the transformations and reinventions of modern painting since the time of Cézanne.

Highlights

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By Bella Ramón and Rea Tonelli

Bella Ramón is an MA Art and Business student at 91影视 Institute with a background in Art History from the University of St Andrews. Her research examines the ways market categories are constructed and contested, themes that anchor her dissertation on the rise and fall of the dedicated Latin American art auction sale in the United States.

Alongside her studies, Bella has gained experience across the commercial gallery and art advisory sectors, as well as independently curating a private exhibition on Uruguayan artist Mario Giacoya, marking his second show in the USA. Of Uruguayan heritage herself, she brings a personal investment to her work, driven by a commitment to increasing the visibility of Latin American and Latinx artists and to critically examining the structures that have determined whose work reaches the international art market, and on what terms.

Rea Tonelli is an MA Art and Business student at 91影视 Institute with a background in Art History and Business from George Washington University. Her interdisciplinary foundation reflects her interest in the relationship between creative practice and strategic thinking, and the ways in which they shape the contemporary art world. Her research centres emerging art markets and the ways in which new cultural economies are formed, particularly in post-communist contexts.

Rea’s experiences across gallery, museum, and non-profit settings have given her a broad understanding of the art world beyond the classroom. Her curiosity and love of learning shape her approach to every opportunity, as she continues to explore innovative approaches to contribute to a more accessible and inclusive art world.

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