Exhibitions announced for LAW’s summer programme

Date: 15 May 2024

Citywealth

London Art Week announces some of the specialist exhibitions on view during this summer, from 28 June to 5 July in galleries in central London. Many dealers are showing works by women artists with a strong appearance of Nordic artists.

LAW encompasses the finest art in any medium from across millennia, with a primary concentration of leading international dealers in master paintings, drawings, sculpture and objects of excellence. In recent years, disciplines have broadened at the dealer-led event and now encompass rare books, manuscripts, maps and exceptional decorative arts. LAW welcomes young dealers, more recently established in business, who work hard to bring to light rediscovered past masters, often through the medium of works on paper, an area of special focus for LAW 2024. This more flexible entry point to the old master market is attractive to new and younger collectors.

First exhibitions announced

“Fruits of Friendship” is an exhibition at Philip Mould & Company which focuses on Mary Beale, her portraits, life and art. It will celebrate the career of one of Britain’s most prominent women artists at the very location where she made her name as a professional artist, in her studio on Pall Mall. The exhibition will span her entire career with examples of her self-portraits, portraits of her family, formal commissions, and her ‘in little’ works after Sir Peter Lely. The show will shed light on her unusual studio practice and
highlight her progressive stance on equality between husband and wife. It will explore her practice through the meaningful connections she made between her family, friends and her wider social circle within the burgeoning middle-class. Her twin roles as parent and artist feel particularly pertinent within
today’s society. There will be an online London Art Week talk on the day of the exhibition opening on the 25th April.

‘British Women Artists (1750-1950) at Karen Taylor Fine Art coincides with the exhibition of the Tate Britain’s ‘Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920’. It will include a number of scientific works by Sarah Stone, Augusta Withers, Matilda Hayes, Sarah Bowdich and Marion Chase. Portraiture,
which provided the livelihood for many female artists, is well represented from Penelope Cawardine and Anna Tonelli in the 18th Century to Laura Knight a century and a half later. Landscapes will feature works by Amelia Long, Lady Farnborough, Sophia Beale and Edith Martineau, whose view of Hampstead Heath embraces the Pre-Raphaelite landscape as does a moody view of the Isle of Wight by Maria Stillman.

‘In the Classroom: Women Artists at the Academy, 1870-1910’ at Colnaghi Elliott will be showing works executed by women artists as part of their training at the art schools that admitted them, like the Académie Julian. Many of the works are coming straight from private collections, such as that by Henriette Daux, who came from a relatively affluent Parisian family, studied at the pioneering school Académie Julian in the mid-1880s under Jules Lefebvre and Alfred Roll. She married Roll in 1905, but
exhibited regularly in the 1880s and 1890s and also published short stories.

Ben Elwes Fine Art’s exhibition explores the work of one woman, Anna Boberg 1864-1935), acclaimed as
‘Sweden’s greatest artist’ in 1906. She also briefly enrolled in the Académie Julian, but her career is defined by the paintings of the arctic landscapes of the Lofoten Islands, in Northern Norway. She went to
Lofoten, far beyond the Arctic Circle, for the first time in 1901 and visited regularly, often on her own, over
the years. This exhibition will give an overview of her work, mainly paintings, but also some drawings, some on loan from institutions and others for sale. There will also be talks relating to Nordic art and the environment during LAW.

Clase Fine Art will also show the works of a Swedish artist, Symbolist Ivar Arosenius with a monograph exhibition of 30 works, the first dedicated to the artist in England. His works are in all major Museums in Sweden. Several of the works on show have never been publicly offered for sale, “Kvarnen” is one of them.

Emma Rutherford is a freelance art historian specialising in portrait miniatures and silhouettes. In 2023, Emma established The Limner Company with the aim to bring portrait miniatures to a wider audience, sharing the latest research and exhibitions, and a carefully curated selection of original works for sale. This is the first time a dealer specialising in miniatures only is participating in London Art Week. Her exhibition will include miniatures of all periods, but in particular early miniatures. In comparison to portrait paintings, miniatures tend to be a more casual portrait often showing the sitter in the fashion of the
moment. This portrait miniature of a Lady and her daughter shows the mother wearing a blue figured dress with white underdress, her hair powdered, while her daughter is wearing a silver-coloured gown and hat with white ostrich feather. The miniature is from circa 1740-50, and like most miniatures in
watercolour on vellum; and the sitter is assumed to be a daughter of Louis XV.

David Messum Fine Art present the 50th edition of their annual British Impressionist exhibitions at the gallery in St. James’s this summer. Today, David Messum’s name is synonymous with the period and with artist’s whose historical and market values have escalated dramatically in recent years. British Impressions 2024 presents over 60 paintings that demonstrate the diversity and influence of the Post-Impressionist movement in Britain from the 1860s onwards. Significant and early works by Henry Herbert La Thangue which reveal his sensitive facture and ability to render stunning light effects with ease are joined with previously unseen portraits by Arthur Hacker RA. The Newlyn School is represented in a collection of impressive and vibrant paintings by Samuel John Lamorna Birch, Charles Walter Simpson, Dod Procter, Harold Knight and Stanhope Alexander Forbes. Significant amongst this collection are works by Harold and Gertrude Harvey which come from the collection of the late Rollo Feilding, 11th Earl of Denbigh. Several of these works have not been seen by the public and their whereabouts have been
unknown until now. In addition, three works by Henry Scott Tuke demonstrate his transition from a painter of refined maritime melodramas to an ardent devotee to capturing the human figure in sun-drenched tranquillity.

The Sladmore gallery will be showing ‘Equine – From Wild, to Tame, to Icon’, an exhibition that will show
sculptures next to horse drawings and paintings. The gallery has always loved and supported equine sculpture and this year sculptures will range from the ‘father of animalier sculpture’– Antoine Louis Barye’s ‘Turkish Horse’ from 1857- through Rembrandt Bugatti’s impressionistic ‘Percheron Stallion’ from 1907, to Nicola Theakston’s modern yet ancient aptly named ‘Resting with the Ancients’ of 2023. Of course no equine exhibition at the Sladmore would be complete without Nic Fiddian Green’s iconic work in six different mediums.

Other exhibitions will include a themed show of works showing men and women at work at first time participant Toby Campbell Fine Art, while Guercino will be the subject of Stephen Ongpin Fine Art’s summer exhibition (more information available soon).

During LAW Summer, new collaborator Trois Crayons will provide a communal hub to host
international works on paper dealers, along with talks on this special focus. The hub will be located
in the heart of Mayfair at No.9 Cork Street, Frieze’s permanent exhibition space. The collaboration aims to reinforce the capital’s long-standing importance as a centre of excellence for old master drawings in particular, upholding London’s position as a crucial destination for international collectors and museum curators.

www.londonartweek.co.uk