We are grateful to Rothschild & Co for their generous invitation to host an exhibition drawn from the Fortress House collection.
Exhibition runs until end of May 2026
Featured artists: Ida Applebroog, Belkis Ayón, Souad Abdelrassoul, Anne Collier, R Crumb, Sara Cwynar, Nick Goss, Van Hanos, Justin Fitzpatrick, Sylvie Fleury, Lucian Freud, Caitlin Keogh, Koak, Oliver Laric, Linder, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Oliver Osborne, Grayson Perry, Glen Pudvine, Michael Rakowitz, Paula Rego, Thomas Ruff, Benjamin Senior, Cindy Sherman, Alexandria Smith, Kiki Smith, Thomas Struth, Alina Szapocznikow, Sophie Thun, Gillian Wearing and Vicky Wright.
The collection has been assembled with great focus over the past four years. From the outset, our primary point of interest has been the human body: as an object of desire, a Surreal spectacle or site of resistance.
Building on a longstanding tradition in art history, the male gaze has directed many of the collection’s acquisitions. Nowhere is this more overt than in the work of R. Crumb, who confesses and satirises desire with obsessive drawings of the female figure.
In response, and to a much greater degree, Fortress House has acquired works which articulate the Feminist replies to the male gaze, including, for example, works from each decade of Kiki Smith’s oeuvre. Among others, the Fortress House collection also features seminal works by Ida Applebroog, Belkis Ayón, Anne Collier, Sylvie Fleury, Koak, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Linder, Paula Rego, Cindy Sherman, Alina Szapocznikow, Sophie Thun and Gillian Wearing.
Other currents and tendencies are also present in this exhibition, including the predilection for portraiture and works addressing the human condition. The figure is predominant, but not exclusively so. A monumental work by Thomas Struth celebrates scientific ingenuity and the human ambition to make sense of the universe.
There is a noted Western bias with most works by artists from the UK, Europe or USA. In building the Fortress House Collection, we ensured acquisitions are weighted towards female artists as a natural corrective to male dominated collections in public institutions.
More recently, the focus of the Fortress House collection has been on artists from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. This has evolved quite organically and extends well established themes within the collection while also opening avenues to new ones - especially identity.
We welcome you to the exhibition and hope you enjoy each work as much as we do.
HENRY LITTLE
Director, Fortress House