National Gallery hopes to tempt crowds with Sin exhibition

Works by Tracey Emin, Andy Warhol and Ron Mueck will join old masters in an exhibition at the National Gallery exploring a subject everyone can relate to: sin.

The free exhibition will bring together religious paintings from the gallery’s collection with modern and contemporary works.

“It is important to show that this is not just a historical phenomenon,” said the curator Joost Joustra. “That it is an ongoing fascination and that artists have dealt with it for hundreds of years and are still doing it.”

Asked whether there was a lot of sin at the gallery, Joustra said: “In the pictures there is. Otherwise not so much.”

The Emin work going on display will be a neon, titled It was just a kiss. “I read that as a sort of confession and confession is an important subject when it comes to sin,” said Joustra.

Warhol will be represented by Repent and Sin No More!, a work that has the feel of leaflets which today are still thrust on people in the streets.

Works from the gallery’s collection include paintings by Cranach the Elder, Bronzino, Jan Steen and William Hogarth.

One of the stars will be Velázquez’s The Immaculate Conception, which is all about the Virgin Mary being born without sin. “It is a very beautiful picture to look at and if you walk by it you don’t necessarily associate it with sin,” said Joustra. “But it is very much about sin.”

One purpose of the show is to encourage people to think about their own definition of sin, how it is universal yet highly personal.

As well as Sin the gallery also announced the first ever display in the UK of one of Poland’s most important paintings.

The 10ft picture of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus by Jan Matejko rarely leaves its home in the Senate Chamber of the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, but will go on show at the National Gallery between 29 July-15 November.