When in Barcelona you can visit museums, talk to parrots on tall palm trees, climb up to Gaudi‘s gardens and roofs with colourful sculptures of mosaics. You can also escape from crowds and tourism and hide in an 18th-century villa with a pink facade, in the Gothic part of Barcelona with a view of the marina and beaches.
It is the famous Soho House, hotel and the club where members can have a special kind of privacy.
Back in 2009, Soho House founder Nick Jones created a program for artists who could sell their work to Soho House and get free memberships with the intention to develop and strengthen international art society.
The Soho House art collection has become one of the largest and very special in its nature. The collection is particularly proud of works by Damien Hirst, John Baldessari, Tacitus Dean, Tracey Emin, Oscar Murillo, Richard Prince and Harland Miller.
Today the collection has over 8,000 works of art from 3,000 artists worldwide.
Kate Bryan, global director of the Soho House art collection says that all the works they have are on display, not a single work sits in a warehouse as it is the case in museums or large collections of corporations. All these phenomenal works are visible on the walls, corridors, in the hotel restaurant, club, cinema, hotel‘s reception or lobby. They are presented among the guests who come here to enjoy themselves, dance and drink, read, meditate, next to there works they eat or discuss the future of our planet.
Works are acquired by famous or emerging artists as Soho House wants to support and showcase the art scene in the cities where they are present.
The concept of the Soho House art collection was inspired by the famous hotel for artists “La Colombe d‘Or” (The Golden Dove). At the end of 1920s, in the south of France, a farmer and his wife used to host artists and they left their art works to say thanks for their stay. “La Colombe d‘Or” became a de facto gathering place for artists, bon vivants and flaneurs who escaped Paris during World War II.
You could stumble across a Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Leger, Renoir.
“It’s really special to do something so old fashioned in a world that’s become so rampantly commercial”, says Kate.
Back to Soho House in Barcelona and their art collection. From Pablo Picasso and Regina Geminez to the new wave of local and international artists, the collection is a true journey.
Soho House Barcelona has the first mural in the Blanca Miro collection done on the staircase leading to the roof terrace. Works on paper by Pablo Picasso and Regina Gimenez are on display at the reception. Soho House Barcelona also features works by Picasso’s technician and close friend, Julio Gonzalez. And there are also the names of local artists: Aldo Urbano Perez, Mercedes Mangrané Mora, Rosanna Casano and many others.
We ended our visit at Cecconi’s restaurant on the ground floor, where portraits in drawings of Henri Matisse, Kate Boxer, Edwards Thomasson, John Copley and the rest of the crew of artists winked at us from the walls. They have great time watching the guests in the hotel that breathes like a theatre, cinema and a gallery, a gathering place of nice world.
PS I recommend you walk to Little Beach House Barcelona, it’s their sister on the beach, full of sun and sea, art and deep contemplation through the waves…
Thank you Soho House for the full artistic experience!
