Insights into London Art Week

Date: 05 Jul 2023

Karen Jones

London Art Week, which was founded in 2013, is well under way with exhibitors holding events and Mayfair and St James bustling with dealers and collectors alike.

Running from 30 June until 7 July, the week includes other areas like Fitzrovia and Chelsea and includes rare books and maps this year. Wedlake Bell, a law firm, are sponsors and there are museum partners including the likes of the Wallace Collection, Ashmolean and the National Gallery. 

Maritime art

Colnaghi Gallery gave a talk on sea and stormscapes, with a lecture from the Royal Museums Greenwich looking at Studio Van de Velde. Willem van de Velde the Elder and his son Willem van de Velde the Younger were the most influential maritime artists of the 17th century. Willem van de Velde was born in Leiden in 1611. His father was a barge master, and from an early age Willem joined his father at sea. By the 1640s he had established himself as a ‘ship’s draughtsman’, often accompanying Dutch fleets at sea to record ships and battles first hand.

We heard from Dr Allison Goudie, Curator of Art (Pre-1800) at Royal Museums Greenwich; Jeremy Howard, Senior Lecturer in History of Art at the University of Buckingham and Old Master paintings specialist at Colnaghi; and Imogen Tedbury, art historian and curator. Tedbury has held curatorial positions at Royal Holloway, University of London, the National Gallery, and the Queen’s House, Royal Museums Greenwich, where she was the co-curator of The Van de Veldes: Greenwich, Art and the Sea. King Charles II took a particular interest in the father-son duo, offering them an annual salary and a studio space at the Queen’s House in Greenwich. From this workshop, the artists revolutionised maritime art in Britain, inspiring generations of artists including J.M.W. Turner.

Colnaghi has galleries in London, New York and Madrid, showcasing the finest old masters, ancient works of art and drawings and is helmed by CEO and owner Jorge Coll. Carlos A. Picón, longtime curator of Greek and Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, oversees Colnaghi New York.

They also had portraits on display which included Portrait of Sinibaldo Gaddi by Tommaso D’Antonio Manzuoli (called Maso da San Friano), an Italian painter active in Florence. Featuring a Moorish page holding a baby son of Florentine collector Niccolo Gaddi, it is thought this will sell well, anecdotally, even though Gaddi’s son died shortly after this was painted, as museums seek to increase their stock representing people of colour.

Beautiful bronzes

Other galleries included the Stuart Lochhead Sculpture gallery with bronzes from Giambologna’s forge in Florence. Giambologna was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small works in bronze and marble. The jewel in their art dealing crown is Striding Mars which is “one of the sculptures most dynamic and impressive studies of the male nude.”

With significant gaggles of bronze Giambologna sculptures on display in the partnering museum, The Wallace Collection, which must be the envy of the art sales world, Striding Mars is in good company in London. This is one of three early casts executed with assistance from bronze, master founder Fra Domenico Portigiani.

The bronze garnered much attention and is price tagged at £4m. Perhaps Elon Musk might buy it with his interest in Mars? It seems though that such a buyer is not necessary as the Art Newspaper in 2018 shows this price is likely to be achieved as a similar bronze was slated at Sotheby’s for between £3-5mn back in 2018 but was withdrawn and sold privately.

The Stuart Lochhead Sculpture gallery has four other Giambologna’s on sale at a lesser price tag (more in the hundreds of thousands range): the Bird Catcher; Cristo Morto; Hercules Slaying the Centaur; and A Lion Attaching a Horse. Perhaps not as rare as Striding Mars.

Avian history

Other galleries include Karen Taylor Fine Art, with British and French works on paper including some reasonably priced pieces c £5-25k on average. One artwork I spotted is by illustrator Sarah Stone of A Mandarin Drake. Stone was a British natural history illustrator and painter. Her works included many studies of specimens brought back to England from expeditions in Australia and the Pacific. Her illustrations are amongst the first studies of many species and are scientifically significant.

Les Sylphides

David Messum Gallery is bringing a challenge to French impressionists with British impressionists; celebrating 60 years of fine art, their exhibition is open until 31 July. You can also join them online at www.messums.com

Prices range from £1,650 up to £350,000 but there is an average of around £10-20k. You can view artwork from artists such as Dame Laura Knight, who is known for work such as Baiting Lines (her oil on canvas sold at a Christies sale, £18,900 in July 2022. It also shows it sold for £21,250 inc. premium at Bonhams in 2016). Messum have pencil drawings by Knight at £1,650 and pencil, ink and watercolour at £9,850. On her current sales form, Knight looks like one to add to your portfolio or one watch. Knight was an English artist who worked in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and drypoint. She died on 7 July 1970, aged 92. Les Sylphides (above) is a ballet choreographed by Michel Fokine to the music of Frederic Chopin. The story concerns a young Scotsman, James, who is about to be married to Effie. The morning of the wedding day, James is dozing in a chair by the fire when a Sylphide appears beside him and wakens him with an airy kiss. She dances for him before she vanishes up the chimney.

Learn more about the talks and exhibitions at www.londonartweek.co.uk

There is also a useful London Gallery Map on www.GalleriesNow.net