AMERICAN artist Jeff Koons is to visit the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford ahead of his forthcoming exhibition.

He will visit on Monday, February 4, before a major show featuring his work starts on Thursday, February 7, running until June 9.

Curated by Mr Koons himself, together with guest curator Norman Rosenthal, the show will feature 17 important works, 14 of which have never been exhibited in the UK before.

READ AGAIN: Jeff Koons to stage major show at Ashmolean

They span the artist’s entire career and his most well-known series including Equilibrium, Statuary, Banality, Antiquity and his recent Gazing Ball sculptures and paintings.

Dr Xa Sturgis, director of the Ashmolean, said: “In showing Jeff Koons at the Ashmolean, the world’s oldest public museum where the collections range from prehistory to the present, this exhibition will provoke a conversation between his work and the history of art and ideas with which his work engages.

“I am sure it will also provoke conversations among those who see it.”

Since Mr Koons burst onto the contemporary art scene in the 1980s he has been described as the most famous, important, subversive, controversial and expensive artist in the world. Tickets for the exhibition are on sale at ashmolean.org