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Over a period of 10 years from 1905 to 1915, three outstanding young sculptors emerged in Britain; Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Eric Gill. The radical impact of their work was to transform British sculpture.
This exhibition is the first time that the three artists have been shown together in this revolutionary context and many of the works have not been exhibited in London before.
The exhibition will contain more than 90 works including sculptures, drawings and pastels. With rooms dedicated to the work of each sculptor the exhibition will focus on the key achievements of each artist and will reveal their impact on British sculpture. The show will bring together spectacular works, including Epstein’s robotic masterpiece Rock Drill, Gaudier’s innovative carving of Birds Erect, and Gill’s controversial carving of the sexual act called Ecstasy.

Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Gill has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The exhibition has been curated by independent curator Richard Cork with Adrian Locke, Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Objects eligible for protection under Part 6 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007

 
The Royal Academy of Arts presents GSK Contemporary 2009, the second annual contemporary art season at 6
Burlington Gardens.  Opening in December, Earth: Art of a changing world will present new and recent work
from more than 30 leading international contemporary artists, including commissions and new works from the
best emerging talent. 
 
Recent debates have centred less on the possibility and more on the certainty and speed with which climate
change will take place.  As the debate has developed, so too has our approach to the future. Co-curated by
Kathleen Soriano, Director of Exhibitions at the Royal Academy, David Buckland, Director of Cape Farewell, and,
Edith Devaney, Royal Academy, this exhibition will reflect the impact of the climate change debate on the
practice of a broad range of contemporary artists across a wide variety of media.
 
Many of the artists featured are actively engaged with the issue itself, working directly to transform the global
scale of climate change into a human narrative.  Others have shown it to have a place, or to resonate, within
their work.  Earth will interconnect ‘issue’ and ‘art’, and will present works that are beautiful, powerful and
thought-provoking.  The exhibition will build on the power of the individual works to create an overall aesthetic,
visual and experiential impact that explores some of the cultural impacts of climate change.
 
The exhibition will introduce the key elements that make up the natural world, and the activities that affect the
planet’s fragile equilibrium.  Works by artists including Ackroyd & Harvey, Spencer Finch, Mona Hatoum, 
Marcos Lutyens & Alessandro Marianantoni, Semiconductor and United Visual Artists engage with the earth,
air, sky, nature and carbon elements to encourage a deeper consideration of our  cultural relationship to earth’s
stability. 
 
Artists such as Antti Laitinen, Edward Burtynsky, Gary Hume and David Nash will represent our contemporary
world and will invoke a dialogue around the perceived security of our existence.
 
At the centre of the show, a group of exhibits will elucidate the role of the artist in the cycle of human and
cultural evolution – as communicator, reflector and interpreter of key issues of the day.  Within this section
artists such as Darren Almond, Sophie Calle, Tacita Dean, Kris Martin, Studio Orta, Cornelia Parker, the poet
Lemn Sissay and Shiro Takatani hold up a mirror to our changing world, producing work that will encourage us
to examine the issues from a variety of angles, to reflect and question.  Other works will confront the viewer
with the consequences of human behaviour through natural disasters and physical collapse, counterpoising the
beauty of the planet with the damage that is being inflicted upon it. 
 
The exhibition concludes with works that present a world of vision and of hope, but through the glass of reality. 
These works will reflect notions of beauty and inspiration fundamentally re-defined by climate change.  This
subtle shift represents the first major change in our view of the world since the first ‘whole earth images’
emerged as photographs taken from Apollo 8 in 1968, an image that anchors our contemporary perception of
the beauty and fragility of the earth that has germinated new notions of care and empathy for our habitat. 
Works by artists such as Tracey Emin, the writer, Ian McEwan, Mariele Neudecker and Emma Wieslander will
offer insight, vision and hope, responding powerfully to this cultural shift, some with a celebration of beauty and
what we stand to lose.  These artists approach this shift from various perspectives: some engaging with the
rigour of scientific endeavour, others through the use of imagined worlds, film and music, delving into the
emotional understanding of knowledge.

The exhibition will feature over 200 works and will include paintings, drawings and sculpture from the early Renaissance to the twentieth century. Selected works by artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, El Greco, Rubens, Goya, Manet, Monet, Schiele, Gauguin and Picasso will be on display, many of which have not previously been shown in the UK.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest houses the state collection of international art works in Hungary and includes the Esterházy collection, acquired by the Hungarian state in 1871. The collection began in the seventeenth century but expanded during the rule of Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy (1765 – 1833) who was responsible for developing the fine collection of Old Master paintings and drawings which will be showcased in the exhibition. One of the highlights of the exhibition will be Raphael's Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist, 1508 (known as The Esterházy Madonna).

The show will be organised chronologically, with thematic sections which will consider the richness of the collections in relation to religious works, mythological subjects, portraiture and landscape paintings.