Masterpiece London has run at the The Royal Hospital, Chelsea since 2010.
Image: Masterpiece London.
The new event, called The London Summer Art Fair has been scheduled for June 22-26 this year, at Royal Hospital Chelsea, the same venue of the now cancelled Masterpiece London.
Harry Van der Hoorn of event specialist and standbuilder Stabilo International and dealer and fair organiser Thomas Woodham-Smith, who are both already planning The Open Art Fair for April in London, have launched the new fair to fill the Masterpiece London gap.
Masterpiece owners MCH Group announced the cancellation of Masterpiece London only a month ago.
Thomas Woodham Smith, co-founder of The London Summer Art Fair.
Woodham-Smith said: “Masterpiece had become such an important date in the London summer calendar. But times have changed and we need to build a new event which is glamorous but scholarly and most of all relevant for our times – fit for purpose. The London Summer Art Fair is a post-Brexit and post-Covid fight-back for London.”
Harry Van der Hoorn, co-founder of The London Summer Art Fair.
Van der Hoorn said: “Building The London Summer Art Fair is a very exciting project which both takes me back to the birth of Masterpiece and also embraces the challenges of our time.”
The organisers said the event will have “no dateline and no limit to what can be shown – the challenge is to bring the best. Among the disciplines represented will be fine art, furniture design from all ages, sculpture, clocks, jewellery and antiquities.”
One of the other original founders of Masterpiece, Simon Phillips of furniture dealer Ronald Phillips, said: “When the owners of Masterpiece announced last month that the fair will be cancelled this year, there was genuine sadness among the exhibitors. We all felt the loss very keenly. It is very exciting to see that Harry and Thomas want to step in to preserve and promote the vast specialist knowledge in art and antiques that we have in this country and move forward to build on the tradition of Masterpiece.”
Masterpiece London was founded by dealers Harry Apter, Simon Phillips, Thomas Woodham-Smith (while at Mallett) and Harry van der Hoorn.
