London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is renaming one of its galleries after Sir Elton and David Furnish, following a “significant” donation from the couple.
The pair pledged the funds to the museum’s new photography centre.
Its Gallery 101 will now be called the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Gallery. The former described it as “the perfect partnership.”
His private photography collection will also go on display.
The singer-songwriter has a collection of more than 7,000 photographs, spanning the early 20th Century to the present day. His collection includes images by Man Ray, Dorothea Lange, Andre Kertesz and Edward Steichen, as well as contemporary artists such as Cindy Sherman and Alec Soth.
A major co-curated temporary exhibition will be announced in due course.
Elton added: “We are delighted to be part of this exciting moment and we hope that audiences will walk away with the same excitement and appreciation for photography as I did when I first started collecting.”
Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, said: “We are immensely grateful to Sir Elton John and David Furnish for their generosity in supporting our photography centre and mission to make historic and contemporary photography available to the widest possible audience.”
The V&A’s photography centre opened in October and an extension will be completed in 2022.
