Running from May 15-19 at the Royal Watercolour Society Gallery, the boutique event hosts eight exhibitors including Mark and Mel Ponting of Blondes Fine Art who have organised the venture. Participants bring a mix of Modern and Contemporary works pitched at a range of prices.
Kynance Fine Art, for example, offers a watercolour, pastel and pencil harbour scene by John Christopher ‘Kit’ Wood (1901-20) for £8500. The Liverpool-born artist is known for his coastal works and was influenced by the primitivism in the works of artists such as Alfred Wallis.
Other exhibitors are Neil Schofield, Quad Fine Art, Middlemarch Fine Art, Panter and Hall Decorative, White Space Art, Thomas Spencer Fine Art and Oriel Fine Art.
Breaking away from the traditional fair set-up where exhibitors are partitioned by stands, LLAF is laid out around the gallery with each exhibitor showing works on a different wall across the two-floor space.
The format follows a model practised by the Eye of the Collector fair (held this year at the Garrison Chapel at Chelsea Barracks from June 26-29), which is also organised without stands and staged at architecturally interesting places.
Many of the dealers have been regular participants in Connect Art Fair, which did not take place in its usual spring slot (no date has been announced for this year).
Quad Fine Art brings this Sandra Blow, Collage, 2003. acrylic, pastel and collage on paper, offered for £3000 + ARR.
Not for profit
Ponting told ATG: “We put the new fair out to dealers I know and who are friends. Everybody bit our hand off. This is not a profit-making venture, it’s collaborative and any extra money is for marketing.”
The fair may become an annual event if the response is strong enough.
Also standing at the fair is the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, which is selling pictures by the artist as it works to open a national centre for illustration in Islington for 2025.
