The Adventurers of Modern Art

 Sky Arts is now free to view and has a new series called The Adventurers of Modern Art.

So first.....

How to watch Sky Arts

I wasn't sure how people who don't have Sky TV or Now TV (I have the latter) access the now "free to view"  Sky Arts - but I asked Google and it told me that  

Sky Arts launched on Freeview from 17 September 2020.

Sky Arts is a new channel dedicated to delivering programming which brings together the best of music, arts and culture in Britain.

Sky Arts is now available on channel 11 and through Freeview Play.

i.e. on Channel 11 - the one after ITV3 on non-HD TV. If your TV did a channel update recently you should have it. Otherwise do the update and refresh your channels.

I now have the first episode playing while I write this. The imagery has an air of Monty Python and the recent film about Vincent Van Gogh i.e. painted versions of what happened - but very simplistic. It also includes relevant film of the age

The Adventurers of Modern Art

The painted image of some of those featuring in the first episode

Apparently - according to this site - The Adventurers of Modern Art

Adapted from Dan Franck's literary trilogy 'Bohemian Paris, Libertad!, Midnight', the story plunges us into Parisian life in the beginning of the 20th century, a hotbed of artistic creation with the blossoming of Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. Through original illustrations, animation and archives, the films trace the highs and lows, scandals and celebrations, tragedies and the triumphs that shaped the phenomenal period of Modern Art up until the end of World War II. The infamous protagonists include Picasso, Dali, Apollinaire, Man Ray, Kiki and more… artists, art dealers, poets and muses who left an indelible mark on our time.

Whereas Radio Times describes it thus

Only brief clips of this series were available to preview, but it looks like a quirkily educational take on a key period in art history: the early years of the 20th century in Paris, which must have been one of the great creative moments anywhere, ever.

Le bonheur de vivre by Henri Matisse

Oil on canvas, 176.5 x 240.7 cm (69 1/2 x 94 3/4 in.). 

In the collection of the Barnes Foundation.

The episodes are as follows:

1. Bohemia - This episode focuses on early 20th century Paris, where the likes of Picasso, Dali and Hemingway gave birth to various movements including Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism. D Includes Picasso, Matisse, Apollinaire and Derain plus Gertrude Stein who Picasso attempts to paint.
2. Picasso and His Gang - A look at how Picasso responded to Matisse with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a painting that caused a scandal and ushered in the aesthetic of cubism.
3. Paris - Capital of the World - A look at the origins of expressionism and surrealism, and how the reputations of Apollinaire, Soutine and Modigliani grew in the Parisian art world.
4. The Enchanters of Montparnasse - A look at Parisian cultural life after the end of the First World War, when the Dadaist and surrealist revolutions got underway, led by Breton, Aragon and Soupault.
5. Libertad! - A look at how artists responded to the Spanish Civil War, with Malraux and Hemingway covering the Republicans' struggle as journalists, while Picasso created his classic Guernica.
6. Midnight in Paris - Paris emerges from the Second War to find that an astonishing work has been created from within its war-torn midst - Marcel Carné's film Les Enfants du Paradis.

Gertrude Stein sitting on a sofa in her Paris studio, with a portrait of her by Pablo Picasso, 

and other modern art paintings hanging on the wall behind her
(Wikimedia commons)