GREENWICH, CONN. — Building on the overwhelming success of the “Pleasures of Collecting: Part I,” the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science turns to modern-day masters in “Pleasures of Collecting: Part II, Twentieth Century and Contemporary Art.” This major exhibition, January 18 through April 13, will present an exclusive showing of American and European art of the past 100 years that has been drawn from the remarkable private collections of generous Greenwich area patrons. The exhibition has been organized by the Bruce Museum.

The list of artists represented features the greatest names in Twentieth art, including Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, René Magritte, Lucien Freud, Marcel Duchamp, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol and Chuck Close; sculptors Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Alexander Calder and Aristide Maillol.

In surveying private collectors of the greater Greenwich region, Bruce Museum curators discovered a treasure trove of significant art that spanned the centuries — more than enough to mount the exhibition in two parts. The first part, which closes January 5, focuses on masterpieces from Fifteenth Century Renaissance through Nineteenth Century Impressionism. Part II spotlights more recent art and works by living artists. The show encompasses the diversity of approaches to art since 1900, from realism to abstraction, and includes mixed media, photography, video and conceptual art as well as the most contemporary cutting-edge work. Outstanding art executed in conventional media such as oil on canvas and bronze is on display with works created using more unconventional materials such as beads, sugar and fried rubber.

Among the many highlights is an extraordinary painting on a grand scale by Pablo Picasso, arguably the greatest name in art of the Twentieth Century. His “La Pousette,” 1952, depicts a life-size image of a woman pushing a baby carriage and represents a time when the artist had become engrossed in family life. It was completed only a few years after his son Claude and daughter Paloma were born.

The show includes a breathtaking portrait head by Amedeo Modigliani, whose heroic yet tender portrayals refigured the portrait ideal, and a remarkable 1941 oil on canvas, “Woman in Blue with Yellow Flowers and Green Sea,” by German expressionist Max Beckmann. Two pieces of sculpture are Giacometti’s “Chignon Woman” of 1948 and Aristide Maillol’s “Nymph” of 1930. An elegant and dramatic mobile by the creator of that art form, Alexander Calder, is also featured.

Marcel Duchamp, whose intellectual, idea-based artwork became the basis of conceptual art, is represented by a version of his famous “Nine Mallic Moulds” and two drawings from 1913 — the very years his “Nude Descending the Staircase” was making a sensation at the Armory Show.

Other artists who are rarely seen in private collections are here: the early modernist sculptor Alexander Archipenko, represented by a major work of 1915; the French painter Balthus, whose provocative renderings are highly prized; George Tooker, represented by one of his most famous works, the extraordinary “Festa;” and Josef Beuys, whose difficult conceptual work was revered by and influenced many younger artists.

Surrealism is represented by one of the most memorable images by René Magritte, “Le Conquerant” of 1925. This early Magritte painting, executed only one year after the official beginning of the Surrealist movement, juxtaposes contradictory objects and removes them from their normal context in order to upset traditional logic and create new meanings. Yves Tanguy’s hallucinatory and sinister “Who Shall Answer,” its unconscious and harrowing drama set in a barren landscape of the mind, is a major painting of this period.

Americans –– Thomas Hart Benton, Milton Avery, Charles Hawthorn and Hans Hofmann –– are represented. Both Hawthorn and Hofmann, in addition to being respected painters, were extremely influential as teachers, influencing generations of artists. The American photorealist Chuck Close, who specializes in portraits, is appropriately represented by his striking image of a photographer, the well-known Bill Wegman, in a work entitled “Bill II.” Close and British painter Lucien Freud are considered the leading portraitists of the current age age. It is interesting to contrast the raw vigor of Freud’s searing portraits with the investigations of personality and aesthetic issues that are probed by Close.

Significant artists of midcentury find a place in the exhibition, including Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb and Jean Dubuffet, and artists who were affiliated with the Pop Art movement, such as Andy Warhol and Larry Rivers. De Kooning’s pastel and charcoal on paper is from the period of his classic “Women” series. Warhol’s iconic imagery epitomizes the Pop culture and reflects his roots in the world of advertising and counterculture.

The exhibition is completed by contemporary art, which is avidly collected in the greater Greenwich area. This work whets the cutting edge of the art and includes photography, video and other less conventional media. In addition to photographs by Cindy Sherman and Gerhard Richter, there are two works of video art. “Good Girl/Bad Girl” by Nam June Paik, the leading pioneer of video art, uses nine TV sets. Another video work is by Bill Viola, an internationally acclaimed video artist whose works have been seen most recently at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Other important contemporary works include conceptual artist Robert Gober’s “Bag of Donuts,” made of fried rubber, and Liza Lou’s beaded Budweiser “Six Pack.”

For more information www.brucemuseum.org or 203-869-0376.