New Tate exhibition reveals British artists' Picasso envy

What you need to know

'Picasso and Modern British Art', at the Tate Britain, surveys Picasso's influence on British Modernists. It features works by Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney, alongside 60-plus paintings, drawings and collages by the Spanish master himself.

The show reveals how Picasso, and in particular his revolutionary Cubist style, was initially despised by the British art world, then accepted and imitated. The show highlights key moments in Britain's relationship with Picasso, including the controversial tour of his famous painting, Guernica, depicting the violence of the Spanish Civil War.

What the critics like

For the first half of the 20th century British critics failed to understand Picasso's work, British galleries didn't display it, and "British visual culture stagnated", says The Daily Telegraph's Richard Dorment. The "perverse brilliance" of this show is that it takes a non-subject (Picasso's impact here was limited to a handful of artists) and turns it into "a gripping indictment of British culture" during this period.

The best thing about the show is that it includes a generous number of Picasso's works, says Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. The Cubist portraits, drawings for Guernica, and savage dream paintings "make for a fine and stimulating Picasso display".

Tate Britain's approach is "broad ranging and revelatory", says Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Visitors who simply want to admire the works of the master will find rewarding pieces in a core gallery that "runs the full gamut of a ground-breaking career". And while many of the British artists may suffer by comparison, the show captures the excitement of two minds "coinciding in a way that shunts one of them (always the British one) off on a radical new track".

What they don't like

I'd suggest rushing through the first four galleries, writes Tom Jeffreys on Spoonfed. The show starts terribly, contains too much waffling text from the curators, and peters out with Hockney's literal homages. The exhibition makes more sense once you get to the next four galleries – the work of Henry Moore and Francis Bacon and major works by Picasso. "With a more focused approach (and a scythe through the spiel) this could have been something special."

Hanging Picassos next to some of his imitators' works is almost an act of cruelty, says Dorment in the Telegraph. "Only Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore emerge from their encounters with Picasso as greater artists than they were before".

Because the British artists are represented at the formative moment of their encounter with Picasso, says Campbell-Johnson in the Times, this is "far from their finest work".

'Picasso and Modern British Art', Tate Britain, 15 February - 15 July 2012 ·