Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art

The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art opened in London in 1998.

Its new home – a Grade II listed Georgian building- was restored with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and contains six galleries, an art library, cafe and bookshop.

The Collection is known internationally for its core of Futurist works, as well as figurative art and sculpture dating from 1890 to the 1950s. It features paintings by Futurism’s main protagonists: Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini, Luigi Russolo and Ardengo Soffici as well as works by Giorgio de Chirico, Amedeo Modigliani, Giorgio Morandi, Mario Sironi and Marino Marini.

The Estorick Collection was founded by American sociologist and writer Eric Estorick (1913-93), who began to collect art when he moved to England after the Second World War. Estorick and his German-born English wife Salome (1920-1989) discovered Umberto Boccioni’s book Futurist Painting and Sculpture (1914) while they were on their honeymoon in 1947. Before the end of their trip they visited erstwhile Futurist Mario Sironi in Milan and bought most of the contents of his studio, including hundreds of drawings.