Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents the first large-scale museum exhibition celebrating Peggy Guggenheim’s years in the United Kingdom and her first gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, active in London between 1938 and 1939.

Over the course of eighteen months, from January 1938 through June 1939, the Guggenheim Jeune gallery was a beacon for the avant-garde movements of the era, known for championing and promoting local and international artists, many of whom were affiliated with abstraction and Surrealism. The exhibition sheds light on a crucial period that contributed to defining Peggy Guggenheim as a collector and patron, focusing on her network of influential friends—from Marcel Duchamp to Samuel Beckett and Mary Reynolds—who helped shape her vision. Guggenheim Jeune hosted over twenty exhibitions, including Vasily Kandinsky’s first solo show in London, a monographic exhibition of Jean Cocteau, the first group exhibition dedicated to collage in the United Kingdom, and a controversial contemporary sculpture exhibition. Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector brings together key works exhibited in those pioneering exhibitions, as well as similar works from the same period by artists including Eileen Agar, Salvador Dalí, Barbara Hepworth, Kandinsky, Rita Kernn-Larsen, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Cedric Morris, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and many others. The show also features archival material, bearing testimony to this period of intense experimentation and cultural vibrancy in the lead-up to World War II. After Venice, the exhibition will travel to the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in the fall of 2026, and to the Guggenheim New York in spring 2027.

What to expect:
Painting, Mixed media, Sculpture, Multi-disciplinary