The crammed, dusty museum-style displays have been replaced with chic new and refurbished galleries, where clients can easily envisage their Modigliani oil or Picasso ceramic plate next to a strikingly modern-looking piece from antiquity.
Mayfair’s Kallos Gallery is the latest to play on this theme, with an exhibition this summer timed to coincide with the capital’s modern and contemporary art sales. Where we are and where we have been runs from June 26-July 21, and will form part of London Art Week (June 30-July 7).
“With an increasing interest in how ancient art has influenced artistry as a whole, we felt it was the right time to do something to celebrate that,” says Madeleine Perridge, the gallery’s director.
The firm has secured four pieces on loan from the Musée Mougins in the French Riviera. Founded by the British investment manager Christian Levett, the museum is the first of its type dedicated to both antiquities and modern and contemporary art.
Levett first started collecting contemporary art before a “mind-blowing” discovery of an antiquities auction catalogue introduced him to the world of ancient art.
Perridge says securing the Mougins pieces laid the foundations of the exhibition – “everything else has grown out of that”. Among the exhibits is a Keith Haring (1958-90) vase from Mougins, which will be placed alongside one of Kallos’ own attic geometric vessels.
The exhibition also features ceramics by Pablo Picasso (1881-73) and Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), and modern jewellery by Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and Jacques Lipchitz (1891-73). All exhibits, bar the Mougins pieces, are for sale.
