Smoked Olives and Frank Auerbach: Fortnum&Mason meets Modern British Art

A "fun" project art historian Robert Upstone, the curator of Fortnum's s Frank AW16, calls it. He chose sixty works of Modern British art from Frank Cohen's huge, world famous contemporary art collection and scattered them around Fortnum & Mason one of the world's most famous grocery stores. (Also included were Fortnum's less famous departments dedicated to men's and women's fashion, perfumes, skin creams and its several places to eat and drink.)  When short of inspiration, mix up expectations. I mean you never can tell, something might come of it. The result, in the case of this recently opened, month- long display, is that something did not--unless you want to count a few laughs of the snorting kind.
    Admittedly it was a surprise to see the thickly painted "Willesden Junction-Autumn Afternoon" (1971) by Leon Kossoff hanging behind the till in the busy tea department.  As international shoppers queued to pay they had plenty of time to look at the painting hanging just below the "Please Pay Here" sign. Was one of them to be so enthused that the basked of Earl Grey was ditched and the painting wrapped up instead? This was not merely improbable, it was out of the question. None of Mr Cohen's art in Fortnum's is for sale.

    Tracy Emin's neon scribble "I know, I know, I know" looks as fine in the window as it would anywhere. The cheery bright slashes by Howard Hodgkin dotted around the store, ditto.  Frank Auerbach's "Primrose Hill, Summer (1968) does not; the reflections are so strong they image loses its coherence. And whatever possessed Upstone to choose Kossoff's "Outside Kilburn Underground Station,"  (1984) for one of the windows facing onto Piccadilly?
It measures 198x213cm--so tall you have to press your nose against the glass to see the top of the picture. Stand back a foot and its top is lopped off.
 
I get it. This is a fresh approach. Go where shoppers are and open their eyes to ART. Fortnum's has cases filled with delectable fresh foods (and its jars of smoked olives are a treat). But stale stale stale is Fortnum'sx Frank.