Beauty and ugliness have always captivated, challenged and seduced humankind. Their meaning shifts with every era and culture, with art offering the keenest lens through which to trace that continual transformation.

The exhibition Beauty and Ugliness follows how artists from the late fifteenth to the late sixteenth century portrayed these extremes, from Italy to Northern Europe. By bringing these two extremes into focus, a rich and layered narrative unfolds, showing how beauty and ugliness complement, contradict and sometimes even embrace one another.