Eric Estorick, an American sociologist who settled in London after the war, began collecting Italian art on his honeymoon after discovering a book on Futurist painting. He and his wife Salome built a collection strong enough that, shortly before his death in 1993, he endowed a foundation to house it permanently. The Estorick Collection opened in 1998 inside a Grade II listed Georgian townhouse on Canonbury Square, the only gallery in Britain dedicated to modern Italian art from 1890 to the 1950s. Six rooms hold work by Boccioni, Balla and Severini alongside sculpture and figurative painting, with a ground-floor bookshop, art library and Caffè Estorick serving Italian coffee and lunches Wednesday to Sunday. The building closes Monday and Tuesday, opens later on the last Thursday of each month, and offers free entry to full-time students after five.
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