Leading artists and designers donate artworks for new exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum
By Cate St Hill
Money raised from an auction will go towards digitising the Museum's drawings collection
A new exhibition at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London has brought together a range of renowned designers, architects and artists to design a postcard-sized piece of art for an auction to help raise funds for the museum.
Christopher Bailey
Architects Zaha Hadid, Ken Shuttleworth and Will Alsop, fashion designers Manolo Blahnik and Paul Smith as well as artists Maggi Hambling and Anthony Gormley are among the 100 creatives that have contributed paintings, photographs and collages to ‘Inspired by Soane: I found this and thought of you…’
The Lincoln’s Inn Fields museum asked them to take inspiration from a selection of 100 objects from the Museum’s collection that are not usually out on public display.
Manolo Blahnik
One of the most notable postcards in the exhibition is the last painting created by American architect Michael Graves, who passed away this year. Other highlights include pieces by artists Elmgreen and Dragset, architectural cartoonist Louis Hellman and broadcaster Jon Snow.
Peter Cook
As part of the exhibition, there will be a raffle for visitors to win one of the artworks. A minimum donation of £350 is required and tickets will be drawn at random shortly after the exhibition closes.
Ken Shuttleworth
The money from the auction will go towards digitising 18,000 items in the Museum’s drawings collection, making architectural drawings by Soane and his office, together with pieces by Robert and James Adam that Soane collected, accessible online to audiences across the world. Plus, for every £1 raised, the Museum will receive a further £1 from the Leon Levy Foundation.
Elmgreen and Dragset
The exhibition will run from 19 May to 6 June. For more information on how to get involved visit www.soane.org/exhibitions/inspired-by-soane
