VENICE.- The London gallery Guggenheim Jeune and the Fucina degli Angeli take center stage in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection’s exhibition program in 2026, which highlights two historical moments in the collecting activity of the American patron, set in dialogue with the permanent collection. On April 25, 2026, the museum will present the first major museum exhibition celebrating Peggy Guggenheim’s extraordinary years in London and her first gallery, Guggenheim Jeune. In the fall, a stunning show will explore the Fucina degli Angeli, a fascinating chapter in the history of artistic glassmaking which involved some of the leading figures of twentieth-century art, including Peggy Guggenheim, who was in many ways its “godmother.”

Following the closing of the tribute to Lucio Fontana’s ceramics on March 2, 2026, the new exhibition season opens with Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector (April 25–October 19, 2026), organized by Gražina Subelytė, Curator, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and Simon Grant, Guest Curator. The exhibition sheds light on a crucial period that contributed to defining Guggenheim as a collector and patron, focusing on her network of influential friends—from Marcel Duchamp to Samuel Beckett and Mary Reynolds—who helped shape her vision. Active in London between 1938 and 1939, Guggenheim Jeune was a beacon for the avant-garde movements of the era and hosted over twenty exhibitions, including Vasily Kandinsky’s first solo show in London, a solo exhibition of Jean Cocteau, the first group exhibition dedicated to collage in the United Kingdom, and a controversial contemporary sculpture exhibition. Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector brings together key works exhibited in those pioneering exhibitions, as well as similar works from the same period by artists including Eileen Agar, Salvador Dalí, Barbara Hepworth, Kandinsky, Rita Kernn-Larsen, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Cedric Morris, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and many others. The show also features archival material, bearing testimony to this period of intense experimentation and cultural vibrancy in the lead-up to World War II. After Venice, the exhibition will travel to the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in the fall of 2026, and to the Guggenheim New York in the spring of 2027.

In November, the museum will present Fucina degli Angeli: Peggy Guggenheim and 20th-Century Artistic Glass (November 14, 2026–March 29, 2027), organized by art historian Cristina Beltrami. The exhibition casts a spotlight on one of the most groundbreaking chapters of postwar Murano glass making, telling the extraordinary story of the Fucina degli Angeli, founded by Egidio Costantini in Murano in the 1950s. Through over one hundred works in glass, drawings, and historical documents, the show traces its history from its earliest years up to the 1990s, exploring collaborations with leading twentieth-century artists, including Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Fontana, Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso, and many prominent Japanese artists at the time, such as Katsuhiko Narita and Tadanori Yokoo. Guggenheim had a decisive role in the Fucina degli Angeli’s success, supporting its founder Costantini during crucial moments and contributing to its international expansion by establishing networks, commissions, and exchanges with the U.S. market. The exhibition will also examine the relationship between works in glass and paintings and sculptures, many of which from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, by artists involved with the Fucina degli Angeli.