The Brown Collection

Beginning in 2016, 1 Bentinck Mews took six years to renovate. It is built on the site of two 18th century mews which, typically, would have provided accommodation for household servants, and for activities such as baking and laundry. The aim of the renovation was to restore the building’s structure to its 1905 integrity and to give it a more inviting, comfortable feel inside. “We basically took it back to its four external walls,” Brown says, after it “had been messed around with a great deal over the last 100 years. But I wanted to make it look like nothing much has happened to it. We tried to get it back to its original state as much as possible.” He wants it to be “the ideal space to…

The Brown Collection includes both Brown’s own work and his extensive collection of works by other artists, predominantly of Old Masters, but also of 20th- and 21st-century artists. Among them are Gillian Wearing, Abraham Bloemaert, Henri Fantin-Latour, Grace Pailthorpe, Hans Hartung, Austin Osman Spare and Gaetano Gandolfi.Glenn Brown views The Brown Collection like a work of art. He says, ‘I’m concerned about it being something that I can play with, use as a mode of expression for myself. It’s a place to experiment'. Keen to show his own work alongside that of other artists – drawing largely on his own collection but sometimes borrowing – Brown was determined to have a place to exhibit…