Indeed, the real pleasure of the exhibition is twofold. First, in giving some of the less-heralded works of the period a brief place in the sun and, second, in demonstrating what imaginative curating can do. In finding new themes — the depiction of women, the influence of Spanish art, views of modern life among them — the organisers have shaken up the pot in a persuasive way. After all, the bulk of the works here are well known and have been exhaustively discussed but they emerge from this exhibition with a credible new historical role. It is curious that it has taken a holiday to Spain to do this. 

Another fresh look at a familiar artistic movement, Abstract Expressionism, is on offer at Tate Modern: Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective (February 10-May 3). Gorky was born in Armenia in 1904 before fleeing the 1915 massacres and ending up in America in 1920. Once there, he set about creating an extraordinarily varied and influential body of work.

Because he was largely self-taught his paintings contain a wide range of references, from Ingres, Cézanne and Picasso through Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. What links them is an intense lyricism that permeates both his figurative and abstract paintings. Given his personal history it is tempting to see in them both nostalgia and tragedy too. Not only had the young Gorky been abandoned by his father, watched his mother die of starvation and been forced into exile, but his later life was unlucky, too. He suffered from cancer, had his neck broken in a car crash and his wife left him, taking their children with her. Small wonder he hanged himself at the age of 44. 

About 150 works will be on display in this, the first major European retrospective for 20 years, including many of the pieces that helped shape the American avant-garde. There might have been even more, but in yet another slice of malign luck he lost a large slice of his work in a studio fire in 1946.

That same year also marked the death of the English Surrealist and landscapist Paul Nash. His work is the subject of a choice exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery: Paul Nash: The Elements (February 10-May 9). This overview of his career has been prompted by the recent cataloguing of the Gallery's British collection and offers the chance to see some rarely-exhibited paintings, drawings and photographs.

Nash made his name with the war paintings he made on being invalided home after falling into a trench near Ypres — paintings he hoped would convey the futility of the conflict to those directing affairs: "Feeble, inarticulate will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth and may it burn their lousy souls," he wrote. In paintings such as Totes Meer, he portrayed war as an elemental battle and he later infused his landscapes, especially those of the Downs, with a sweeter version of the same overarching nature mysticism. 

Nash has always been an undervalued artist — too distinctively English to achieve international status perhaps — but here is an opportunity to prove that he deserves a place among his showier European peers.