There’s an outstanding new Van Gogh exhibition at a suburban London museum, but to some in the UK art world, such chances to view the work of a French master only serve as a reminder of how previous generations of Brits managed to almost completely ignore important developments taking place on the European continent. “Were we really the only nation to turn its collective back on each new movement in art as it arose, from Impressionism and Post-Impressionism to Fauvism and Cubism? … with a few exceptions, English collectors lacked the courage to purchase modern paintings, and that is why there are relatively few of these pictures in our national galleries as compared to Russia or the US.”