Many of the Goldfingers' friends were leading figures in the art world, who offered varied and often personal examples of their work to the collection.

Now on show throughout 2 Willow Road, these works help paint a vivid picture of the social and creative life of the architect and his wife. A number of the key European artist of the twentieth century are represented in the house. Among the works on display are:

Dining Room

Bridget Riley (1931- ) Fugitive (1962)
Oil on board, signed and dated
Bridget Riley is a proponent of Op Art or optical paintings that explore how the eye relates to geometric shapes.

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Sir Roland Penrose (1900-84) The Real Woman (1937)
Collage, watercolour and pencil on board
Penrose met the Goldfingers in Paris, possibly through his future wife, photographer Lee Miller, and remained friends after they became neighbours in Hampstead. This is one of Penrose's most important works.

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Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) La Tour (1910)
Lithograph, signed
Delauney was a Parisian painter who developed his own brightly coloured style of Cubism, known as 'Orphism'. Delaunay inscribed this impression personally to Goldfinger. He is particularly well known for a series of studies of the Eiffel Tower, of which this is one.

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The Living Room

Henry Moore (1898-1986) Head (1938)
Elm and string
Moore, one of the leading figures in 20th century sculpture, a neighbour of Goldfinger's in the 1930s. Having explored primitive influences on sculpture, he turned to European models and particularly Surrealism in the late 1930s. This piece was one of the Goldfingers' most prized possessions.

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Max Ernst (1891 - 1976) Pebble (1934)
Granite
This egg-shaped pebble was painted during a summer spent with Alberto Giacometti in Switzerland. Ernst collected a number of pebbles, painting some and carving others. He inspired Goldfinger to paint his own pebbles, a group of which are displayed in the Living Room.

Other works on display include pieces by Prunella Clough, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, Amedee Ozenfant, Jean Arp and Eileen Agar, who created a pen, ink and gouache portrait of Ernö Goldfinger, on show in the Nursery.