Displaying items by tag: somerset house

London is set to get its own international design biennial, based on the model of the Venice art and architecture biennales, and directed by former Icon editor Christopher Turner.

The inaugural London Design Bienniale will open to the public on September 15, 2016, with exhibitions and installations from international participants on the theme Utopia by Design.

The center of the European market for photography has traditionally been Paris, thanks in part to longstanding support from the city’s institutions and, more recently, the dominance of Paris Photo as the leading photography fair this side of the Atlantic.

Now, Photo London, a new fair launched by the cultural consultancy Candlestar with support from the Luma Foundation, is aiming to fill this gap in the capital’s art market, with around 60 international and UK-based galleries, at Somerset House (21-24 May), wh ere the word “photography” was first coined by John Herschel in 1839.

The late German-born British painter, Lucian Freud (1922-2011), specified in his will that his private art collection was to be donated to British museums rather than burdening his family with an inheritance tax after his death. The bequest is part of a British law that allows “acceptance in lieu” of taxes for authors, artists, and collectors.

Considered one of Britain’s greatest painters best known for his portraits and figurative works, Freud owned a number of important masterpieces including Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot’s (1796-1875) Femme á la Manche Jaune (The Italian Woman or Woman with Yellow Sleeve) and three bronze sculptures by Edgar Degas (1834-1917). It has been determined that the Corot painting, which has not been on public view in over 60 years, will go to the National Gallery in London and the Degas sculptures, Horse Galloping on Right Foot, La Masseuse, and Portrait of a Woman Head Resting on One Hand, will go to Somerset House’s Courtauld Gallery.

The donation is a thank you of sorts from Freud to Britain. The grandson of Sigmund Freud, Lucian escaped Hitler’s wrath when he came to England as a child. He became a British citizen in 1939.