HOME previews the highlights of this year’s Masterpiece.
Words Eve Herbert
Masterpiece London has established itself as the world’s leading cross-collecting fair, offering the finest works of art, design, furniture and jewellery, from antiquity to the present day. This unmissable event at the height of the capital’s summer season provides an unparalleled opportunity for new and established collectors to discover exceptional works for sale from 160 international exhibitors. This year’s edition showcases rare and important Impressionist and Modernist paintings; compelling presentations celebrating British art and design; exquisite jewellery; art and objects from antiquity as well as contemporary work by artists including Marina Abramović, Ibrahim El Salahi, Chiharu Shiota and Rob & Nick Carter. The Royal Bank of Canada returns as the Fair’s principal sponsor for the fifth successive year.
MASTERPIECE PRESENTS, in collaboration with FactumArte and Lisson Gallery, will showcase new works by Marina Abramović, Five Stages of Maya Dance, in an immersive, specially conceived area. This unseen body of work comprises five alabaster portraits of Marina Abramović which merge performance, light and sculpture. Their hauntingly physical presence decomposes into intricately carved landscapes of alabaster as you move around the pieces.
Masterpiece’s cross-collecting ethos can be seen throughout the fair, where exhibitors specialising in a wide variety of disciplines and eras are brought together, offering the broadest spectrum of works of any art fair, with classical and contemporary shown side-by-side. Visitors will encounter presentations which carefully combine furniture, sculpture and works of art from all periods, unified by quality. Examples of this ethos can be seen at Benjamin Proust, Perrin Fine Art, Robilant + Voena, and Safani Gallery & Geoffrey Diner.
This year, highly important Impressionist and Modern works will be exhibited at the Fair by a number of exhibitors. Landau Fine Art’s presentation will include a Picasso oil painting which hung for decades behind the desk of his only dealer, Paul Rosenberg. Gladwell & Patterson will be bringing a preeminent example of a late waterlilies painting by Monet and, celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, Hammer Galleries will be bringing an early work by Joan Miró along with Marc Chagall’s Peintre au coq rouge.
Masterpiece is an important destination for collectors of British art and design and many of this year’s exhibitors are celebrating the work of British artists as well as those who have lived and worked in the UK. This focus is encapsulated by Richard Green whose presentation ‘Best of British from our Shores and Beyond’ includes pieces by J.M.W.Turner, L.S. Lowry and John Constable.
Modern and Post-War British artists including Eileen Agar, Duncan Grant, Barbara Hepworth, Bridget Riley and Graham Sutherland, will be presented by The Redfern Gallery, Osborne Samuel, Philip Mould, Offer Waterman, Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert and Piano Nobile.
With a booth inspired by the Surrealist poet and patron Edward James, David Gill Gallery will be bringing together contemporary works from their roster of artists and designers including Zaha Hadid, Michele Oka Doner and Mattia Bonetti. Modern and contemporary design will also be presented by 18 Davies Street Gallery, Rose Uniacke and Modernity Stockholm. New exhibitor Sarah Myerscough Gallery will showcase unique handcrafted contemporary pieces of design by John Makepeace amongst others, and Sinai & Sons Ltd. will focus on the work of Italian painter, sculptor, interior decorator and engraver Piero Fornasetti. Hitomi Hosono’s exquisite collaboration with Wedgwood will be revealed at Adrian Sassoon, and Katie Jones will present a selection of contemporary Japanese applied arts.28 June – 4 July, South Grounds, The Royal Hospital Chelsea, SW3 4LW
