The Royal Academy of Arts will revisit one of the most influential yet short-lived chapters in twentieth-century art history this autumn with Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector, a major exhibition examining the legendary collector’s first gallery, Guggenheim Jeune.
Opening on 21st November 2026, the exhibition brings together more than 80 works spanning painting, sculpture, drawing, collage, prints and photography to tell the story of the pioneering gallery Peggy Guggenheim ran at 30 Cork Street between 1938 and 1939—a space that helped shape London’s modern art scene and laid the foundations for the internationally renowned collection she would later establish in Venice.
Although Guggenheim Jeune existed for just 18 months, it became one of London’s leading venues for Surrealism and abstraction, staging more than 20 exhibitions and introducing British audiences to artists including Vasily Kandinsky, Jean Cocteau and Yves Tanguy through landmark solo presentations. The Royal Academy exhibition reunites many of these works in London for the first time since they were originally shown, alongside pieces by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Eileen Agar, Piet Mondrian, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Salvador Dalí and others.
Rather than presenting Guggenheim simply as one of the twentieth century’s greatest collectors, the exhibition focuses on the formative period in which she developed her eye and her ambitions as a gallerist. Organised around a series of Guggenheim Jeune’s landmark exhibitions, it explores the artists, friendships and ideas that shaped both the gallery’s programme and Guggenheim’s collecting philosophy.
Among the highlights are Lucian Freud’s first publicly exhibited work, Old Man Running (1937–38), created while he was still a teenager, alongside personal objects including Peggy Guggenheim’s Surrealist earrings by Yves Tanguy. Visitors will also encounter works from the gallery’s influential exhibitions dedicated to abstraction, collage and Surrealism, including pieces that once provoked controversy when British customs officials—and even the Director of the Tate—questioned whether some contemporary sculptures could be considered art at all.
The exhibition concludes by reflecting on Guggenheim’s enduring relationship with Britain. Although plans to establish a permanent museum of modern art in London were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War, the brief life of Guggenheim Jeune proved instrumental in shaping both her future collection and the international story of modern art.
Organised by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts, the exhibition arrives in London following its presentation in Venice before travelling to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2027.
Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector, 21st November 2026 – 14th March 2027
Royal Academy of Arts
