ART & EXHIBITIONS
I’VE BEEN SWANNING AROUND MAYFAIR ART galleries with a drink in hand for the best part of 30 years. There’s a very good reason why galleries serve wine at private views. You’re more likely to fall in love when you’ve had a couple of drinks and, for those of us without bottomless pockets, you need to fall in love with a piece of art you can’t afford to be able to take a deep breath and end up buying it. I first discovered the pleasures of Mayfair’s art world as an art history student, grabbing a handful of peanuts at private views and treasuring the glossy catalogues they kindly gave me. I then became an art critic, determined to draw attention to the fabulous smaller shows at commercial galleries that always seem to get ignored in favour of the over-hyped mega-exhibitions in public institutions. Finally, arm in arm with my wife, champagne at our lips, we took the leap and became art buyers. The first time we both felt so guilty about spending over £1,000 on a painting that we swore to tell neither of our parents. Ever since the Royal Academy opened its purpose built
premises in Burlington House in 1868, art has been sold in Mayfair galleries. In fact, the world-famous institution is celebrating the 250th anniversary of its foundation this year and its impressive newly renovated galleries back onto Cork Street, for many years the core of Mayfair’s art market. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Cork Street has been lined with prominent commercial art galleries and one could always spot some of our most famous artists at its private views. Pop artist Sir Peter Blake once signed a catalogue for my daughter, while David Hockney gave me his phone number… I was a very good looking young man! Cork Street’s pre-eminent status suffered a blow a few
years ago when major property development compelled many galleries to relocate elsewhere in Mayfair, but now the work is over it appears that many spaces are being offered to new galleries. Possibly our greatest modern artist Francis Bacon was a notorious habitué of Mayfair. Regularly exhibited at the Marlborough Gallery in Albemarle Street, he was often paid in cash and delighted in spending it on gambling in nearby casinos and drinking champagne in Soho. “Champagne for my real friends,” he would say. “Real pain for my sham friends.” But this tour of my favourite five Mayfair galleries
must, of course, begin in Savile Row. There at No. 23 you will find the always edgy Hauser & Wirth. This enormously successful international gallery originated in Switzerland in 1992 but has since opened premier galleries around the world. Specialising in contemporary and emerging artists, some of its art may not be to everyone’s taste but it certainly relishes in pushing the boundaries and is an invigorating way to start your ramble through artistic Mayfair. By the way, when you’re next in the West Country, Hauser & Wirth in Bruton offers the most excellent Sunday roasts served in a delightful restaurant gallery. Walking west from Savile Row you quickly get to Cork
Street. Messum’s at No. 28 is one of the great survivors of the property development purge that saw many long- established galleries leave the famous street, but Michael Child, a fine art consultant at Messum’s is confident it
Top and right: Exhibits from the Halcyon Gallery. Left: Meloria Gomeldon c.1715 by John Van Der Vaart. Below: Homme Libellule I by Elisabeth Frink exhibited at Beaux Arts
will get its cultural mojo back again. “The opening of many new galleries will lift the street,” says Child, “as will the new Royal Academy extension at the end of the street, making it once again a hub of London’s art world.” Messum’s has thrived in Cork Street for 24 years selling more traditional forms of art, including British impressionists such as the ever popular Peter Brown, known as “Pete the street” after his fondness for setting up his easel on city pavements to paint. My particular favourite Cork Street gallery is Sam
Fogg, on the corner with Clifford Street, specialising in Medieval and Asian art, ring its doorbell and you enter a two-storey gallery full of the most exquisite museum- quality pieces and all available to buy, whether it’s a 15th century altarpiece or a Byzantine ring. Other more contemporary Cork Street galleries well worth a browse are Waddington Custot, Flowers, Redfern and Browse & Darby. When Cork Street was at its height in the 1990s, the
road would be shut to traffic for one evening and all the galleries would open their doors for a street party when you could wander from one to the other. My wife and I certainly bought a few paintings on those heady summer evenings. Hopefully those days may return. One block further westwards and you are into New
Bond Street, home to leading art galleries and auction houses for well over a century. My favourite among these is the Fine Art Society, trading from its elegant Victorian building at No. 148 since 1876. At first selling art prints to
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