Neighbourhood news, features, and comment
It’s been a very difficult year for London’s art galleries as they are classified as shops and therefore were closed until 4 July, and are now closed again until 2 December, and maybe beyond. Planning art exhibitions is a complex and finely tuned business with all the making, scheduling, curating, publicising and marketing organised months, …
In June, 2013, I wrote in Fitzrovia News about an important art collection, then in a private house in Fitzrovia, that included works by Vanessa Bell, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Maurice Denis, Duncan Grant, Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Graham Sutherland and Alfred Wallis. Duncan Grant, self portrait. Image source: In the public domain. The collection had been …
Continue reading "Lost stash of 400 erotic drawings by Duncan Grant comes to light"
Fitzrovia’s wonderful Cartoon Museum in Wells Street has caught the spirit of the times with a very topical exhibition: Hail to the Chief!? It features witty and revealing caricature portraits by award winning political cartoonist Martin Rowson, and insightful and acerbic pen portraits by Andrew Gimson, author of The Rise of Boris Johnson. President Trump, …
Continue reading "Hail to the Chief!? at The Cartoon Museum"
A history of Mortimer Street and its artistic connections will be uncovered in a talk this month given by a curator from the Museum of London. Mortimer Street in Fitzrovia has a hidden artistic history. The streets around Mortimer Street in Fitzrovia became the base for figures as diverse as Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Karl …
Continue reading "The forgotten history of Mortimer Street and its artistic community"
Graduating students from the Royal College of Art MA photography course will display their work at four Fitzrovia galleries this month in place of their usual degree show which had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. Photo: Nadja Ellinger, at Fitzrovia Chapel. The degree show would not only have been an opportunity to bring together …
Mike Pentelow enjoying music and a drink at the King and Queen pub in September 2018. The death of Mike Pentelow is very sad -- I still can’t believe he’s gone. I have lost a friend and colleague on Fitzrovia News, and the Fitzrovia community has lost its chronicler, historian, archivist and activist. The extent …
Continue reading "I have lost a friend and colleague on Fitzrovia News"
The Fitzrovia Chapel, in Pearson Square, is hosting a virtual exhibition entitled “Portraits for NHS Heroes” showcasing portraits of NHS staff, created during the current crisis. There is some very accomplished work on display, elegantly complemented by the Chapel’s extravagant interior. The Net Gallery in partnership with Tom Croft have created the virtual exhibition at …
Continue reading "Portraits for NHS Heroes, an online exhibition at The Fitzrovia Chapel"
Although galleries have been closed since March, most have beefed up their online presence enabling art lovers to get their aesthetic fix from the comfort of their laptop. Where galleries used to only have a limited selection of images from the current exhibition on their website, to encourage you to visit, they now have whole …
Towards the end of 2011 I wrote enthusiastically about the increase in the number of commercial galleries, from 16 in 2008 to 37. By 2012 the number peaked at around 54, but there has been a big fallout over the last five years, and we are now down to around 32 spaces. Also, these figures …
Picture the scene: it’s June 1965 and Barry Miles (Fitzrovia resident for over 50 years and Czar of the Counterculture) and his pal John “Hoppy” Hopkins join 7,000 other like-minded souls at The Royal Albert Hall for an international poetry gathering, led by the Americans Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso. Miles (for nobody …
Continue reading "The press that changed the cultural landscape of Britain"
FITZROVIA ART GALLERIES Alison Jacques Gallery, 18 Berners Street ( http://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com) Arup Phase 2, 8 Fitzroy Street ( https://www.arup.com/news-and-events/events/exhibition-spaces) Bartha Contemporary, 25 Margaret Street ( http://www.barthacontemporary.com) Building Centre, Store Street ( http://www.buildingcentre.co.uk) Caroll / Fletcher, 56-57 Eastcastle Street ( http://www.carrollfletcher.com) Coningsby, 30 Tottenham Street ( http://www.coningsbygallery.com) Gallery Different, 14 Percy Street ( http://www.gallerydifferent.co.uk) Edel Assanti, …
Continue reading "Fitzrovia galleries listing, September 2017"
The Fitzrovia art scene continues to flourish, with around 47 commercial galleries now thriving in our manor (see below for full list). The rate of growth is not as dynamic as it was a few years ago, when new galleries were opening almost every month, but as galleries close or move on to pastures new, …
Alison Jacques Gallery, 18 Berners Street To 1 Oct: Dorothea Tanning – Flower Paintings 7 Oct – 5 Nov: Takuro Kuwata – From Tea Bowl 17 Nov – 7 Jan: Teller on Mapplethorpe Lazarides Gallery, 11 Rathbone Place 9 Sept – 8 Oct: Nina Pandolfo - Beyond Meninas Narrative Projects, 110 New Cavendish Street 15 …
Continue reading "Featured art galleries and full list of galleries in Fitzrovia, Autumn 2016"
From 1966 for the next decade the coolest club in London was the famous Speakeasy located in the modest basement of 48 Margaret Street. As the watering hole of choice for the glitterati of the rock and pop music scene, it was frequented by virtually every musician of note, both British and American, from the …
Continue reading "Speakeasy, where The Who could drink easy, pull easy"
Fitzrovia has a lively art scene that has grown from only eight commercial galleries in 2008 to over 50 in 2015, with an additional 30 establishments that have opened and closed during this period. Around 10 per cent of all London galleries are now located in Fitzrovia, and Eastcastle Street and its environs is being heralded …
Continue reading "Fitzrovia galleries update, December 2015"
The Fitzrovia Gallery in Whitfield Street is hosting an exhibition this month entitled Seduction & Sedition, featuring new work by Joe Hesketh an artist who lives and works in Pendle, Lancashire. Joe says of her work: “My paintings are all about life’s journey, all the pieces you pick up and all the things you’d like to …
Continue reading "Pendle witch Joe Hesketh exhibits paintings at Fitzrovia Gallery"
The Fitzrovia Gallery is an elegant new space that has recently opened at 139 Whitfield Street. Owned and run by three long standing local residents, Sarah McDonald, Suresh Pushpananthan and Michael Skelly, their manifesto is to “play a key role in London’s creative and cultural landscape. We believe in the life-enhancing value of art and …
Continue reading "New gallery opens to reveal old posters in a subterranean world"
They've been in Cleveland Street for nearly 30 years and now they've moved to their third premises. Western Printers were forced out of their old shop by development plans but when we visited them this week they were all smiles and happy to be in their new shop, even though it is smaller. Husband and …
Continue reading "Printers leave Westminster for Camden in shop swap"
London artist Alice Stallard’s exhibition of collages which opened this week at Fitzrovia’s Nancy Victor Gallery has the intriguing title "Head For the Horizon, I’ll Meet You There". This relates to the journey taken by the artist in making the artwork and the interaction with the viewer on seeing it. Alice explains: “The pieces are …
Continue reading "Alice Stallard: Head for the horizon, I’ll meet you there"
In September 2011, I enthusiastically reported “The Fitzrovia Gallery Explosion”, announcing that we now had 37 art galleries in Fitzrovia of which 21 had opened in the preceding three years. In the two and a half years since that article there has been a phenomenal amount of coming and going with 30 new galleries opening, …
Continue reading "Fitzrovia’s Galleries: a landscape that has changed rapidly"
