Simon Grant

SAVE THE DATE! Louise Janin: The Echo of the Spirit through the Rhythms of Life Curated by Simon Grant @simoncgrant and Vivienne Roberts @mediumisticart GPS Gallery 36 Great Pulteney Street Soho, London W1F 9NS Preview 2nd June 6-8pm 3 - 7th June 2026 10-6pm (Free Admission) Image: Design by @studio.ardworks Art Photography: Siyu Chen Lewis Credit for photograph of Louise Janin: Thérèse Bonney - University of California, Berkeley / BHVP / Roger-Viollet

Six years in the making and ‘Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector’ is now open @guggenheim_venice ! Thank you to the incredible team at the gallery in particular to the fabulous @gsubelyte who has been the most joyful and inspiring colleague and collaborator throughout; as well as @marco30020 @ambradantone @chiara.h.barbieri - Deep thanks to the PGC’s director #KaroleVail for asking me to join this project. Thanks too to all the authors who have contributed important new research to the book. I will be posting some of the great stories around the exhibition and the research, highlighting the works that we have brought together, many of which Peggy showed at Guggenheim Jeune in 1938-1939. Please visit! And when you do - in Venice (until October 19), @royalacademyarts (November 21, 2026–March 14, 2027) and @guggenheim (April 16, 2027–September 12, 2027) tell us what you think. Grazie Mille #peggyguggenheim

⚡️⚡️✨✨ Hats off to @charlesaspreytyersstreet for his extraordinary gift of 53 contemporary artworks to the wonderful Pier Arts Centre, Orkney. The mix of British and international art includes work by Wolfgang Tillmans, Michael Dean, Tenant of Culture, Atelier EB, Lucy McKenzie, Manfred Pernice, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Marc Camille Chaimowicz and Martin Puryear. A great boost for a regional collection and an inspirational demonstration of art philanthropy that I hope will encourage others out there to follow suit. @pierartscentre Works included in the Charles Asprey Gift have been acquired through the Cultural Gifts Scheme.

Eunice Djerrkŋu Yunupiŋu ‘Two Sisters Together’ (2021). Yunupiŋu (c.1945–2022) was a highly respected Yolŋu elder, contemporary artist, and gospel singer from Yirrkala in North-East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. A senior member of the Gumatj clan, she became known for depicting spirit figures in her unconventional, technicolour bark paintings that were made often using reclaimed print toners (ground polyester) and natural earth pigments. #eunicedjerrkŋuyunupiŋu #barkpainting

Matthew Wong: Interiors at Palazzo Tiepolo Passi #matthewwong

In February 1938, Peggy Guggenheim staged the first UK show of Kandinsky’s work, at her recently opened London gallery Guggenheim Jeune. Marcel Duchamp knew Kandinsky from Paris and suggested the artist to Peggy, which delighted the artist who around this time was struggling to get Parisians to show or buy his work. The Guggenheim Jeune show featured 38 paintings, watercolours, drawings, and gouaches, many of which reflected Kandinsky’s fascination with microscopic forms, biology, zoology, insects… as you can see in the first three images here - all works that were exhibited in that exhibition. Peggy bought two paintings including Dominant Curve (2nd pic, now in the Guggenheim Collection). She also mediated the donation of Cossacks (4th pic) made by her sister Hazel King-Farlow McKinley to Tate Gallery. Thanks to the show, many regional venues wanted to exhibit Kandinsky’s pictures, which Peggy duly facilitated, including loans to Oundle School, Northamptonshire (where his works were on display in the school’s art room), Gloucester Municipal School of Art and Crafts, the New Bristol Art Club and in Leeds. All works here are included in Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector. Please visit! @guggenheim_venice @gsubelyte Images: Figure Verte 1936 Dominant Curve 1936 Le Noeud Rouge 1936 Cossacks 1910-11 Kandinsky with Dominant Curve

Sanya Kantarovsky in the stunning setting of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Palazzo Loredan San Marco ✨⚡️✨ @skantily @stuartshavemodernart @stuartshave #sanyakantarovsky

Highlights from the central pavilion @labiennale curated by the late Koyo Kouoh, and her team 👏👏👏✨ 1 Seyni Awa Camara #seyniawacamara 2 Werewere Liking #werewereliking 3 Kambui Olujimi #kambuiolujimi 4 Hala Schoukair #halaschoukair 5 & 6 Sabian Baumann #sabianbaumann 7 Werewere Liking 8 Amina Saoudi Ait Khoy 9 Billie Zangewa 10 Peter Mulindwa

Spectral hauntings of Venice past and present, layered in with social history, political realities and the potency of (local) materials for telling powerful stories, all resonate in Lydia Ourahmane’s fascinating works. Congrats @emogirl4 and @polly.staple @nicolettafioruccifoundation ⚡️✨

Great to see Lucian Freud’s early drawings and paintings in the Freud show @nationalportraitgallery ranging from his earliest crayon drawings to his oils painted around the time he was at Cedric Morris’s East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing 1939-1942. Freud’s mother loved Lucian’s art and got his work shown at Peggy Guggenheim’s groundbreaking exhibition of children’s art at Guggenheim Jeune in 1938 - which would include his painting ‘Old Man Running’ (last slide) painted around 1937-8, as well as some drawings (possibly one or two at the NPG). ‘Old Man Running’ is included in ‘Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector’ @guggenheim_venice alongside Cedric Morris’s fabulous portraits of his friends. (More on these in a future post.) @gsubelyte #peggyguggenheim #lucianfreud #cedricmorris

Monumental show of works by the brilliant @michael_armitage_studio at @palazzo_grassi Thoughtful, forensic and insightful - a history painter for our times.

Chico da Silva ‘Jellyfish and Piranhas’ (1950s). The work of Francisco da Silva (1910–1985, Brazil), known as ‘Chico da Silva,’ or simply ‘Chico’. was rooted in Amazonian cosmologies and ranged from folkloric and spiritual figures to plants and anthropomorphic animals. He was born to an Indigenous Peruvian father and a mother from Ceará in northeastern Brazil. His childhood was spent in the Amazon rainforest before the family relocated to Quixadá, where his father died after being bitten by a rattlesnake. His work was exhibited from the early 1950s in museums in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paris and in several Swiss cities - and will be at Nottingham Contemporary from 6 June which is very exciting! @nottm_contemp @stuqan