Peggy Guggenheim and Cork Street, as told in Venice

Peggy Guggenheim became Peggy Guggenheim at Cork Street. Number 30, 2nd floor.

Over eighteen months her gallery Guggenheim Jeune was a lodestar for the avant-garde movements of the time, championing local and international artists, abstraction and Surrealism.

Marcel Duchamp was artistic adviser, and close too were Samuel Beckett, the subject of a liaison, and Mary Reynolds. The distinction between Guggenheim’s business and private lives being famously indistinct.

Now the first large-scale museum exhibition has been dedicated to celebrating her years in the UK. ‘Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector’, explores the crucial period that contributed to defining Guggenheim as a patron of the arts and enthusiast, fanning the flames of avant-garde art in prewar Britain as London institutions leant conservative.

Yves Tanguy and Peggy Guggenheim at Yew Tree Cottage, 1938, Private collection

Showing at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the exhibition will arrive at the Royal Academy of Arts from 21 November 2026, steps away from Cork Street, before travelling to Guggenheim New York from 16 April 2027 and completing the trifecta of cities that form the canvas of her life.

Gisèle Freund, Jean Cocteau, 1939, Raisin-coated chromogenic colour print on Kodak paper, 20.3 x 30 cm, IMEC, Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe, France

During its short, incandescent spell, Guggenheim Jeune hosted over twenty exhibitions, including the bristling opening exhibition of Jean Cocteau; Vasily Kandinsky’s first solo show in London; the first group exhibition dedicated to collage in the United Kingdom; and a controversial contemporary sculpture exhibition. An exhibition of works created by children featured the debut showing of Lucian Freud.

© Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector, 25.04. – 19.10.2026, Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Ph. Matteo De Fina

Works shown from the period include artists Eileen Agar, Jean (Hans) Arp, Barbara Hepworth, Vasily Kandinsky, Rita Kernn-Larsen, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Cedric Morris, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Yves Tanguy, and more.

Rooms are given to solo shows the gallery devoted to artists including Kandinsky, Russian-born artist Marie Vassilieff, a pioneering figure in the development of the “portrait doll” genre, Welsh artist Cedric Morris, a central figure in the British avant-garde, American painter Charles Howard, German sculptor Heinz Henghes, and Atelier 17, the printmaking studio founded by Stanley William Hayter.

A tribute to Abstract and Concrete Art follows, featuring works by Mondrian, Taeuber-Arp, and van Doesburg. And a focus on the photographic colour portraits of Gisèle Freund, presented at Guggenheim Jeune as slide projections, her favoured form of showing her colour transparencies of artists and intellectuals throughout her life.

The final rooms bring together works by artists included in the collage exhibition and several Surrealist exhibitions, including Kernn-Larsen, André Masson, Reuben Mednikoff, Wolfgang Paalen, Grace Pailthorpe, Man Ray, Tanguy, and John Tunnard.

Gisèle Freund, Herbert Read and Peggy Guggenheim, 1939 (printed 1977), Dye transfer print, 46 x 35 cm, Peggy Guggenheim Collection Archives, Venice, Purchase courtesy Ikona Photo Gallery, Venice, 1988

Peggy Guggenheim described the taking of the photograph seen here in her memoirs:

“One day a young woman came into the gallery [Guggenheim Jeune]. She looked very masculine and said she had been sent by Marcel Duchamp, so we treated her well… I thought it would be amusing to give her a chance to show her slides in my gallery. I combined this with a farewell party [for the closing of the gallery, June 22, 1939]… After that Miss Freund photographed Mr. Read and me in my little flat… Behind us was a painting by Tanguy. We had to choose whether to cut this or ourselves in half. We decided to favour ourselves.”

The painting is The Sun in Its Jewel Case (1937), which Guggenheim purchased from her July 1938 exhibition of paintings by Yves Tanguy.

Until 19 October 2026 – Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, Dorsoduro 701, I-30123, Venezia