The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice has announced a major exhibition for 2026 titled "Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector." The show focuses on the pivotal period between 1938 and 1939 when Guggenheim operated her first gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, on Cork Street. It will feature approximately 100 works by avant-garde masters such as Vasily Kandinsky, Jean Cocteau, and Yves Tanguy, alongside archival materials documenting her early career as a gallerist and patron.
This exhibition is significant because it highlights a frequently overlooked chapter that defined Guggenheim’s trajectory from a socialite to a world-class collector. By staging Kandinsky’s first UK solo show and Lucian Freud’s debut, Guggenheim Jeune challenged the conservative British art establishment of the prewar era. The exhibition traces how her failed ambition to open a modern art museum in London ultimately laid the groundwork for her legendary institution in Venice.