Peter Garth Palumbo, Baron Palumbo (born 20 July 1935) is a property developer, art collector and architecture connoisseur.
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Palumbo is the son of Rudolph Palumbo and his wife Elsie. He went to Scaitcliffe, Surrey and then Eton College and Worcester College, Oxford, whence he received an M.A. in law. He married Denia Wigram in 1959, and they had one son, Ministry of Sound founder James Palumbo,[1] and two daughters. They divorced in 1977. After Wigram died in 1986, he married Hayat Mroue (daughter of the Lebanese newspaper publisher Kamel Mroue) with whom he had another son and two daughters.
In 1972 he bought Farnsworth House, designed by Mies van der Rohe, to which Palumbo added the designer's furniture. He also expanded the grounds of the house by purchasing adjacent properties and commissioned noted sculptors including Anthony Caro and Richard Serra to provide artworks for the grounds. Palumbo sold the property to a group of Mies conservationists in 2003. Palumbo also owns Kentuck Knob, a private house built by Frank Lloyd Wright in the mountains just east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and for a time owned Le Corbusier's Maisons Jaoul in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris.
Palumbo was a trustee of the Tate Gallery from 1978 until 1985 and chairman of the gallery's foundation between 1986 and 1987. He formerly served as a trustee for the Whitechapel Art Gallery and is a trustee of the Natural History Museum and the chairman of the Serpentine Gallery's board of trustees. Margaret Thatcher appointed him chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1988 until 1993. In 1994 Palumbo demolished the Mappin & Webb building in London and replaced it with No 1 Poultry, which was opened by Thatcher. He was also the former chancellor of the University of Portsmouth and the chairman of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery. He has been on the Board of Trustees of The Architecture Foundation. Palumbo is chairman of the jury of the Prtizker Architecture Prize.
Palumbo led the effort to repair St Stephen Walbrook church in London, a building by Sir Christopher Wren which had been badly damaged during The Blitz. The sculptor Henry Moore was commissioned by Palumbo to build a white stone altar for the church. The former rector of St Stephen Walbrook, Dr Chad Varah, was also the family chaplain.
He was created a life peer by Thatcher on 4 February 1991 as Baron Palumbo of Walbrook in the City of London, after the neighbourhood around St Stephen Walbrook.
Palumbo was a polo teammate of Prince Charles and the two were close until 1984 when the Prince publicly criticised Palumbo's plan to build an unrealised design by Mies van der Rohe near St.Paul's Cathedral that Charles described as "a glass stump".
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| Preceded by The Lord Rees-Mogg |
Chair of the Arts Council of Great Britain 1989–1994 |
Succeeded by The Earl of Gowrie |