The exhibition will present key works from the outstanding collection of Dr Jeffrey Sherwin. Over many years, Dr Sherwin has built what is arguably the finest collection of British Surrealism in existence. The collection includes exceptional works by Eileen Agar, Roland Penrose, Henry Moore, Emmy Bridgwater and Conroy Maddox. Not only he supplemented the collection with an unparalleled set of original manuscripts, photographs, posters, rare Surrealist volumes and curiosities, but he has also contextualised the Surrealist works with a broader collection of modern British art from Gaudier-Brzeska to Damien Hirst.

To complement the show mima is publishing a richly illustrated catalogue designed by APFEL (a practice for everyday life), including a text by art historian, critic and curator Andrew Wilson and an interview with Jeffrey Sherwin.

Covering the genres of drawing, painting, ceramics and sculpture, Material Culturewill bring together works by leading artists including Antony Gormley, Andy Goldsworthy, Edmund de Waal, Julian Stair, Langlands & Bell and others. From its inception, the idea of mima has attracted great interest from artists, collectors and institutions, who have responded to the way mima teases out relationships between the modern and contemporary, and fine art and craft, through its collecting activities. Material Culturepresents the manifestation of this interest through recent gifts to the collection from private collectors & artists as well as organisations such as The Art Fund and the Contemporary Art Society.