From the department of "here's a museum you have probably never been to": The Estorick Collection of modern Italian art. London.

Eric Estorick (1913-1993) was an American sociologist and writer who began to collect works of art when he came to live in England after the Second World War. Born in Brooklyn, Estorick studied at New York University during the early 1930s. It was there that he discovered The Gallery of Living Art in Washington Square College, a remarkable collection containing masterpieces by Picasso, Léger, Miró and Matisse which was to inspire him to become a collector himself. (All text and photos courtesy The Estorick Collection)

In 1941, after teaching sociology at New York University for two years, Estorick published the first of his two biographies of Sir Stafford Cripps, then Britain's ambassador in Moscow and later Chancellor of the Exchequer. His research was to bring him into contact with many leading politicians of the day, such as Churchill, Eden and Bevan. Estorick visited Europe in 1946 to complete work on the second biography and it was at this time that he began to buy drawings by artists such as Picasso, Gris, Léger and Braque.

Returning to New York on the Queen Elizabeth, following another visit to Europe in 1947, he met Salome Dessau and by the end of the voyage they were engaged. Salome (1920-89) was the daughter of a textile manufacturer who had left Leipzig in 1932 and settled in Nottingham, where she and Eric were married in October 1947.
During their honeymoon in Switzerland Estorick discovered Umberto Boccioni's book Futurist Painting and Sculpture (1914) which marked the beginning of his passion for Italian art. Before returning to England the newlyweds visited the studio of the erstwhile Futurist Mario Sironi in Milan, where Estorick bought 'hundreds and hundreds of drawings and as many pictures as I could get into my Packard Convertible Roadster'.

The couple traveled to Italy on many occasions during the late 1940s and 1950s, meeting and befriending major artists of the day, including Massimo Campigli and Zoran Music. Their collection of Italian art took shape between 1953 and 1958 and was shown in a series of major public exhibitions between 1954 and 1960, both in Britain and abroad, including one at the Tate Gallery in 1956. Around this time Estorick became a full-time art dealer and acted as a representative for a number of Hollywood clients in the London auction rooms, including Lauren Bacall, Burt Lancaster and Billy Wilder. In 1960 he founded the Grosvenor Gallery in London.

The Tate Gallery requested a long-term loan of key works which lasted from 1966 until 1975, when the Estoricks withdrew their pictures and went to live in Barbados. In 1968 the Italian Republic conferred the title of Cavaliere on Estorick, followed in 1970 by the higher honour of Commendatore for his services in promoting Italian art. In 1979 the Italian government showed interest in purchasing the collection but the family refused this offer, along with others from museums in the United States and Israel. Six months prior to his death Estorick set up the Eric and Salome Estorick Foundation, to which he donated all his Italian works. A Georgian house at 39a Canonbury Square, Islington, was purchased in 1994 and refurbished with a substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to house the collection, art library, café and shop.

The Estorick Collection brings together some of the finest and most important works created by Italian artists during the first half of the twentieth century and is Britain's only gallery devoted to modern Italian art.
It is perhaps best known for its outstanding core of Futurist works. Founded in 1909 by the poet F. T. Marinetti, Futurism remains Italy's most significant contribution to twentieth century European culture. Marinetti wanted to break with the oppressive weight of Italy's cultural heritage and develop an aesthetic based on modern life and technology, particularly speed and the machine. His Modern Idol, Carrà's Leaving the Theatre, Russolo's Music, Severini's The Boulevard and Balla's The Hand of the Violinist.

Young Milanese painters Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà and Luigi Russolo, who wanted to extend Marinetti's ideas to the visual arts. They were joined in 1910 by the painters Gino Severini and Giacomo Balla and together these artists represented Futurism's first phase. The acknowledged Futurist masterpieces of the collection are drawn from this pioneering period (1909-16) and include Boccioni's
Other major artists whose work features in the collection include Amedeo Modigliani - famous for his graceful, elongated portraits and figure studies - who is represented by a fine series of drawings and the late oil portrait of Dr François Brabander. Giorgio de Chirico, the founder of Metaphysical Art, whose enigmatic, dream-like imagery was to exert a profound influence on the Surrealists, is also represented in the collection with the important early work, The Revolt of the Sage.

In addition, there is a large number of paintings and drawings by Mario Sironi and Massimo Campigli. Sironi was briefly affiliated with Futurism, but in the 1920s went on to become the leading artist of the Novecento movement during the Fascist era. Campigli's painting was strongly influenced by Etruscan art. His painterly vision and friendship with Estorick means that his works hold a special place in the collection, as do those of Zoran Music, whose atmospheric landscapes were inspired by his travels in Italy and Dalmatia. Estorick also knew Giorgio Morandi during the early 1950s and the collection contains a remarkable series of still life and landscape etchings and drawings which span the artist's entire career.
A number of sculptors are also represented in the collection, including Medardo Rosso, whose wax and plaster sculpture Impressions of the Boulevard: Woman with a Veil (1893) is the earliest work on display. On the death of Rodin in 1917 Rosso was hailed as 'the greatest living sculptor' by the French writer and critic Apollinaire. The collection also contains works by Emilio Greco, Giacomo Manzù and Marino Marini, the latter two artists being largely credited with bringing about the rebirth of Italian sculpture in the twentieth century.