Record visitor numbers at London’s specialist Art Fairs reflect a buoyant art market
LONDON, 2014-2-12 — /travelprnews.com/ — London is home to 20 specialist art fairs which showcase a huge variety of works from affordable art to museum quality pieces and attract thousands of international art buyers to the city. For those coming to the city for London’s internationally renowned art fairs, there are many London hotels to choose from and booking well in advance will ensure they have a place to stay nearby.
The London Art Fair held in January at Islington’s Business Design Centre is the first London art fair of the year and in 2014 some 30,694 visitors meant the fair far surpassed its previous record of 25,020 in 2012, proving the buoyancy of the London art market.
Jonathan Dimbleby opens the Works on Paper art fair this month (6th to 9th February 2014) which has been held annually at London’s Science Museum for the last four years. It’s one of two art fairs in London in February. Art14 London returns to Olympia on 28th February 2014 following the success of last year’s inaugural event which attracted 25,000 visitors. Within Art14 London, Food 4 Art, curated by Evening Standard restaurant critic Fay Maschler, sees four top London chefs – Florence Knight, Rainer Becker, Jason Atherton and Richard Corrigan – who collect art for their restaurants take responsibility for the food at the fair for one day.
Aimed at the amateur art buyer, the Affordable Art Fair is held twice a year in London in two different locations – the first takes place in Battersea between 13th and 16th March 2014 and the second on Hampstead Heath is from 12th to 15th June in 2014. The Battersea fair is in the same month as the more exclusive BADA Antiques & Fine Art Fair (19th to 25th March 2014) organised by the British Antique Dealers’ Association and held at Duke of York Square.
Held annually at the Royal College of Art, Ceramic Art London (4th to 6th April 2014), the leading international fair for contemporary ceramics, is now in its tenth year and displays the work of more than 75 ceramic artists as well as an exhibition by RCA Ceramics students. Chelsea Art Fair, which brings art works valued at a minimum of £500 to Chelsea Old Town Hall, takes place in the same month, from 10th to 13th April 2014, and is enjoying renewed vigour thanks to a fresh new format introduced last year.
Bringing together exciting international talents from the diverse field of graphic arts, the Pick Me Up art fair (23rd April to 5th May 2014) at Somerset House offers a chance to buy works and prints from a whole host of illustrators, graphic designers, cartoonists and graphic novelists.
Buyers can snap up original art from some of London’s most promising emerging artists before they get signed and the prices soar at The Other Art Fair which comes to Ambika P3 from 24th to 27th April 2014.
The London Original Print Fair, the longest-running specialist print fair in the world, will be celebrating its 29th anniversary in 2014 following an impressive number of attendees last year when it welcomed some 13,000 visitors during the four-day event, a record for the fair.
Both the 20/21 International Art Fair (15th to 18th May 2014) and the 20/21 British Art Fair (10th to 14th September 2014) are held at the Royal College of Art, Kensington, and both are major commercial art fairs specialising in art from the 20th and 21st centuries.
Over 150 dealers from Britain and abroad showcase their collections of antiques, jewellery, paintings, ceramics and contemporary designs at the Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair (5th to 15th June 2014) which, along with the Winter Fine Art & Antiques Fair (3rd to 9th November 2014) takes place at Olympia and is run in association with BADA and LAPADA, the largest association or professional dealers in the UK.
Dedicated to finding the best in art and design, Masterpiece London, is held on the South Grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. A high-end exhibition for serious art collectors, Masterpiece runs from 26th June to 2nd July 2014 and is
In October the country’s leading contemporary art fair, Frieze, and Frieze Masters come to London’s Regent’s Park. The Frieze fairs are so influential they have spawned what is now known as ‘Frieze week’ when the PAD London Art Fair, or Pavilion of Art & Design London sets up in Berkeley Square and Multiplied returns to Christie’s in South Kensington. The 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair is also set to return following its successful debut at Somerset House during Frieze week last year.
For more information on these and other art fairs, all the latest gallery news and blockbuster exhibitions in London go to LondonTown.com where a wide choice of London hotels to suit all budgets, information on restaurants, bars and cafes as well as all the major attractions is provided.
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