A new exhibition titled "Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector" will celebrate the legacy of Peggy Guggenheim's short-lived London gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, which operated from January 1938 to just 18 months later. The show, featuring over 100 works, opens at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice in spring 2026 before traveling to the Royal Academy in London. Highlights include the first painting Lucian Freud ever exhibited, Vasily Kandinsky's first solo London exhibition, and the first major collage group show in Britain, among other groundbreaking displays.
The exhibition matters because Guggenheim Jeune, despite its brief tenure, profoundly shaped the direction of contemporary art in Britain by introducing avant-garde artists like Salvador Dalí, Barbara Hepworth, and Piet Mondrian at a time when London was not a major stage for modern art. The show underscores Guggenheim's risk-taking and her role in launching unknown artists who later became household names, while also highlighting her failed attempt to open a Museum of Modern Art in London, a vision interrupted by World War II.