HOTELS • April 2018
What better way to get your culture fix than by surrounding yourself with spectacular artwork, even as you sleep. Travel journalist Jenny Southan seeks out hotels that combine luxury hospitality with private collections to rival many a gallery
This Kensington boutique hotel excels in contemporary pop and street art, with bold floor-to-ceiling murals along every corridor and bi-monthly exhibitions in the lobby and restaurant. (Colour Me by London’s Charlotte Cory, which encourages guests to draw on the hotel’s walls, runs until 20 April 2018.) The property has a resident curator, Vestalia Chilton, who believes the shared spaces offer an opportunity to display creativity. The 75sqm Jimmie Martin Penthouse has Baroque ’n’ roll furniture from the eponymous British designer Jimmie Martin.
Doubles from £149
Occupying a tower located in Marina Bay, this Ritz-Carlton stands out thanks to its 4,200-piece art collection that includes prints and paintings by Andy Warhol and David Hockney, aerial installations by Frank Stella and glass work by Dale Chihuly. The property was built by Pritzker prize-winning architect Kevin Roche, but it’s what’s inside that counts. About 90 per cent of the pieces were commissioned by the hotel, while 350 are said to be ‘museum quality’. Guests who want to learn more can take a podcast tour (just ask for an iPod at reception).
Doubles from £236
Like a fairytale castle on a hillside looking down over Zurich, the 175-room Dolder Grand is decorated with more than 100 works from the owner Urs Schwarzenbach’s private collection. Above the entrance is Andy Warhol’s 11-metre-wide Big Retrospective Painting, while dotted throughout the hotel and grounds are works by masters such as Salvador Dali, Jean Tinguely, Joan Miró, Henry Moore and Anish Kapoor. In the garden you’ll find Fernando Botero’s Woman with Fruit.
Doubles from £437
New York is famous for art galleries, but if you stay at the The Surrey, on the Upper East Side, you won’t even need to leave the hotel to see a photo-realistic tapestry of Kate Moss by Chuck Close; monochrome photography by Jenny Holzer and Imogen Cunningham; a giant wood engraving by Mel Bochner; animations by William Kentridge and charcoal drawings by Matthias Weischer. Bedrooms will also appeal to aesthetes, with Sferra bedding, Pratesi robes, Diptyque bathing treats and classic cocktails crafted by personal bartenders 24 hours a day.
Doubles from £450
The opulent Rome Cavalieri has more than 1,000 artworks and cultural treasures. Some of its most prized pieces include Berthel Thorvaldsen’s bronze Shepherd Boy with Dog; Francesco del Cairo’s painting of Judith with the Head of Holofernes and Cesare Zocchi’s white marble statue of Minos, King of Crete. Three of the most valuable paintings are by Italy’s Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, while Antonio Tantardini’s The Kiss and Rudolf Nureyev’s ballet costumes are freely available to admire. Resident art historians will give tours (there’s also a podcast).
Doubles from £262
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This article has been tagged Destination, Hotels