Here is a selection of works, some of which are for sale and all of which feature on the walls of commercial institutions.
The Affordable Art Fair
Running in 10 different cities every year, the Affordable Art Fair next takes place in Hampstead Heath, one of several UK locations for the event. This staging, running from May 9-12, brings together galleries offering affordable works (usually priced from around £100-6000) in its purpose-built marquee.
The event has a theme of wellbeing, featuring yoga workshops, immersive art and relaxation classes throughout the week.
Portrait exhibition
The Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition runs from May 9-24 at the Mall Galleries. Selected by a panel of professional portrait painters, themselves elected to the society, it is one of the world’s most extensive contemporary portrait exhibitions, including around 200 works.
This year, a portrait of rare books dealer Tim Bryars of Bryars & Bryars is included. The pencil drawing is the work of artist Emma Wesley, as is another portrait in the show of Greg Taylor, a former dealer and long-time member of the trade.
Osborne Samuel
Mayfair gallery Osborne Samuel holds its annual modern British art selling exhibition from May 8-31, offering an array of highlights including paintings by Keith Vaughan, Frank Auerbach and David Bomberg.
The show highlights new acquisitions and introduces some works that will also come to its stand at Masterpiece (June 27-July 3). Prices start at £20,000.
Waterhouse & Dodd
From May 14-June 7, Waterhouse & Dodd holds the exhibition Park Paintings 1975-95 by Martyn Brewster. The majority have been stored for around 30 years in Brewster’s Finsbury Park studio and have only recently been recovered. These works come from a time when Martyn was closely associated with the Warwick Arts Trust in London.
Hazlitt Holland Hibbert
Later this month, Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, a modern and contemporary British art gallery in St James’s is staging Barbara Hepworth/Ben Nicholson: Sculpture and Paintings in the 1930s. The loan show features more than 30 works created at a pivotal moment in the two artists’ careers, co-curated by their grand-daughter Sophie Bowness with Professor Chris Green of the Courtauld Institute.
It features works borrowed from institutions such as the National Galleries of Scotland, the Courtauld Gallery and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, as well as drawing on archival material from the Hepworth Estate. The show, running from May 22-July 12, covers a time when the artist-couple was largely based in London, reuniting works produced in the same studio.
