The Brown Collection

The Brown Collection Home to the art collection and archive of British artist Glenn Brown. Free admission.
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These charcoal drawings belong to the final chapter of Roger Hilton’s (1911–1975) life, made in the early 1970s when ill...
26/05/2026

These charcoal drawings belong to the final chapter of Roger Hilton’s (1911–1975) life, made in the early 1970s when illness had left him largely bedridden at his home in Cornwall. It was during these same years that Hilton produced the Night Letters: illustrated notes and gouaches written through the night to his sleeping wife Rose Hilton (1931–2019), also a painter, now among the most discussed works of his career.

The drawings here are the quieter counterpart to that output. Bedridden, drawing became his primary means of working. Figures overlap, their outlines merging and indistinct, exploring themes of the body, s*x and intimacy. Some urgent and agitated, others still and contemplative.

Hilton had spent his career caught between abstraction and figuration, shaped by his years in Paris and a close engagement with Matisse and the CoBrA movement. Alongside the Night Letters, they form an unusually intimate record of an artist’s final years.

These works are currently on view at The Brown Collection.

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Works by Roger Hilton:

Entwined Couple, 1970s
N**e Couple Embracing, 1970s
Untitled, 1970s
Untitled (seated figure), 1960s [detail]
Untitled, 1972-73

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Four new works have joined our current exhibition Hoi Polloi, replacing works by Glenn Brown that left to join two solo ...
13/05/2026

Four new works have joined our current exhibition Hoi Polloi, replacing works by Glenn Brown that left to join two solo shows in Bath: Arrows of Desire at opening 16 May, and Grottoesque at opening 22 May.

Glenn Brown exhibits three new works at The Brown Collection: The Holy Lamb of God (2026), Dirty Little Seahorses (2024/2026), and And Thus We Existed (2019/2020/2026), alongside a new addition by Austin Osman Spare, N**e Torso (1938).

See the link in bio to plan your visit.

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Hoi Polloi
24 September 2025 – 8 August 2026

The Brown Collection
1 Bentinck Mews, London W1U 2AF

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This painting by the Venetian Baroque artist Giovanni Battista Piazzetta depicts Saint Romuald in a quiet moment of pray...
29/04/2026

This painting by the Venetian Baroque artist Giovanni Battista Piazzetta depicts Saint Romuald in a quiet moment of prayer and reflection.

The saint is illuminated against a sombre background, demonstrating Piazzetta’s mastery of chiaroscuro and his focus on psychological immediacy rather than narrative detail.

In this work, holiness and connection to God are conveyed not through spectacle or complex narrative, but through an inward, contemplative experience characteristic of late Baroque devotional painting in Venice.

This painting is on view in Gallery 4 of The Brown Collection.

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Join us for The Worst Exhibition in the World: Degenerate Art 1937, a talk and book signing by Dr John-Paul Stonard, on ...
23/04/2026

Join us for The Worst Exhibition in the World: Degenerate Art 1937, a talk and book signing by Dr John-Paul Stonard, on Monday 11 May at 6.30pm. Held in person at The Brown Collection, Marylebone.

This talk examines the extraordinary 1937 exhibition Entartete Kunst (‘Degenerate Art’) in Munich, exploring how modern works once displayed in leading German museums were recast as objects of ridicule within a N**i propaganda campaign. It considers the exhibition’s lasting impact on perceptions of modern art, and what may be learned by comparing it with the state-approved art shown simultaneously.

Dr John-Paul Stonard has recently published a book with the same title, which will be available for signing following the talk.

Tickets and further information are available via the link in bio.

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Otto Freundlich, Der Neue Mensch, 1912 (detail)
Wolfgang Willrich, Säuberung des Kunsttempels, p.23, published by J.F. Lehmanns Verlag, Berlin, 1937 (detail)
Adolf Hi**er with Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels visiting the ‘House for German Art’, Munich, 18 July 1937 (detail)
Installation view, Degenerate Art exhibition, 1937 (detail)

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14/04/2026

Join us for Myth vs Nature, a lecture by art historian Leslie Primo, on Thursday 30 April at 6.30pm. Held in person at The Brown Collection, Marylebone.

Explore how painters of the Low Countries engaged with the later Italian Renaissance, responding to its innovations by developing Mannerism and creating highly detailed, imaginative scenes where nature is transformed through myth, symbolism and abundance.

Works by Michelangelo, Joachim Wtewael, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens and Paulus Potter and many more will be discussed.

Find out more via the link in bio.

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Artworks
Joachim Wtewael, The Golden Age, 1605 [detail]
Abraham Bloemaert, Apollo and Diana Punishing Niobe by Killing Her Children, 1591 [detail]
Michelangelo Buonarroti, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, 1508–1512 [detail]
Joachim Wtewael, Perseus Freeing Andromeda, 1611 [detail]
Roelant Savery, Noah’s Ark, c. 1628 [detail]

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Music:

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Three Glenn Brown works from Hoi Polloi will soon be leaving the collection to feature in his upcoming solo exhibitions ...
08/04/2026

Three Glenn Brown works from Hoi Polloi will soon be leaving the collection to feature in his upcoming solo exhibitions in Bath.

They’ll be shown across two exhibitions in two venues: Brown in Bath: Arrows of Desire at the Holburne Museum, and Brown in Bath: Grottoesque at No.1 Royal Crescent.

The works leaving are:
When the Satellite Sings, 2024
On the Way to the Leisure Centre, 2017
The Holy Bible, 2022

The last chance to see them at The Brown Collection is Saturday, 2 May. After that, they’ll be replaced with a new selection of Glenn Brown’s paintings.

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Proserpine by Hendrick Goltzius captures the Roman goddess of the underworld. Her body twists in a serpentine pose known...
17/03/2026

Proserpine by Hendrick Goltzius captures the Roman goddess of the underworld. Her body twists in a serpentine pose known as figura serpentinata, a spiralling movement characteristic of the refined artifice of Northern Mannerism.

Goltzius was also a pioneering printmaker. In the late sixteenth century he helped develop the chiaroscuro woodcut, using multiple carved woodblocks printed in different tones to create light and shadow. This layered technique added depth and atmosphere.

As in many of Goltzius’s works, the anatomy is highly idealised - muscular yet smooth, controlled yet expressive. By drawing on Classical myth, artists of this period could depict the n**e sensually while exploring themes of fertility, temptation and transformation in a manner considered socially acceptable.

This work, along with others by Hendrick Goltzius, can be seen in Hoi Polloi at The Brown Collection until Saturday 8 August.

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Hendrick Goltzius, Proserpine, Date Unknown
Ubaldo Gandolfi, Hercules resting against a plinth, 1780
Gilles Demarteau, Naiads and Triton (after Boucher), 18th Century

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Drawing 2 (after Tiepolo), 2023, by Glenn Brown, is displayed in gallery 4 at The Brown Collection.The source material f...
11/03/2026

Drawing 2 (after Tiepolo), 2023, by Glenn Brown, is displayed in gallery 4 at The Brown Collection.

The source material for this work is Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s Head of a Bearded Man Looking Up, to the Right, which is displayed nearby. It is unusual for the source material to be hung so close to Brown’s finished work.

Likely intended as a preparatory study for a fresco, Tiepolo’s drawing demonstrates a light, economical touch, with features suggested rather than fully rendered. The upward tilt of the head exemplifies the Venetian Baroque style, conveying drama and spiritual reflection.

In Brown’s version, that lightness becomes intensity. He fills the surface with swirling, layered lines, leaving almost no empty space. The face seems alive with movement. Subtle flashes of yellow and blue disrupt the historical reference, suggesting artificiality and toxicity. What was once a quiet, intimate study becomes something more charged.

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Glenn Brown, Drawing 2 (after Tiepolo), 2023
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Head of a Bearded Man Looking Up, to the Right, Date Unknown

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Best known for his surrealist photography, the German artist Hans Bellmer was also an accomplished painter and draughtsm...
27/02/2026

Best known for his surrealist photography, the German artist Hans Bellmer was also an accomplished painter and draughtsman. Throughout his career, he returned repeatedly to the fragmented female form - at once erotic, uncanny and quietly defiant.

In N**e Descending (1955), which hangs in Gallery 3 of The Brown Collection, Bellmer removes the head entirely, leaving interlocking bodies that merge and dissolve into one another. The work echoes Marcel Duchamp’s N**e Descending a Staircase (1912), yet shifts the focus from movement to psychological tension.

Here, the body is not presented as a portrait of an individual, but as a vessel. For Bellmer, desire does not arise from social convention or polite thought, but from the subconscious and the body itself.

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Hans Bellmer, La Franqui, 1948
Hans Bellmer, Sans Titre, 1945
Hans Bellmer, N**e Descending, 1955
Hans Bellmer, Untitled, 1960

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07/02/2026

Join us for Quirkiness and the Printed Image, a talk by art historian and critic Nigel Ip, on Tuesday 24 February at 6.30pm. Held in person at The Brown Collection, Marylebone.

Explore the material and technical qualities of prints from the 16th century to today, from cracked plates and experimental surfaces to masterful manipulations of line. Discover how these processes shaped key innovations in the medium.

Works by Parmigianino, Schiavone, Claude Mellan, Jean-Étienne Liotard, Pablo Picasso, Chizuko Yoshida and Dora Maurer will be discussed.

Tickets via the link in bio. £12 standard, £10 concession.

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Claude Mellan, Bust of the Virgin, 1650
Dora Maurer, P6, date unknown
Chizuko Yoshida, Butterfly A, 1953
Pablo Picasso, Blind Minotaur Led by a Little Girl in the Night, 1934

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04/02/2026

Anya Gallaccio’s Untitled is installed in the basement gallery of The Brown Collection. Comprising a chair and candles, with several lit at once, the work is immediately distinct from the rest of the current exhibition. While mark-making is a recurring theme across the collection, Gallaccio’s contribution operates through the deliberate absence of her own marks, letting nature make the marks for her.

Gallaccio is known for site-specific works that evolve over the course of their installation, and Untitled is no exception. Its material state is never fixed, rendering the work highly conceptual and resistant to conventional documentation. Instead, it exists most fully in the memories of those who encounter it.

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Please note that the candles are intermittently lit, especially during tours and special events.

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Hoi Polloi
24.09.2025 – 08.08.2026

The Brown Collection
1 Bentinck Mews, W1U 2AF
Open 10:30 – 18:00, Wednesday – Saturday
Free admission

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1 Bentinck Mews
London
W1U2AF

Opening Hours

Wednesday 10:30am - 6pm
Thursday 10:30am - 6pm
Friday 10:30am - 6pm
Saturday 10:30am - 6pm

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