4 July -10 July 2009
May 2009 Press ReleaseSince its debut in 2001 Master Drawings London has risen from strength to strength and constitutes an anticipated event in the international art market. It offers a unique chance to view the world’s most exquisite works on paper, shown by both British and international dealers, in a cluster of Mayfair, St. James’s and now Bloomsbury galleries, most of which are conveniently located within walking distance from each other. There is an enormous variety of works shown at Master Drawings London, ranging from 15th- century Renaissance drawings to contemporary British works. Jean Luc-Baroni, Hill-Stone, Stephen Ongpin and Didier Aaron are amongst those who will show the finest examples of beautiful Old Master drawings, while in contrast Trinity Contemporary is bringing a set of drawings by contemporary, British-born artists. The collection In Between the Lines contains the work of Gavin Turk, Tracey Emin, Tim Head and Claude Heath alongside that of rising stars such as Kate Atkin (born 1981) and Juliet Haysom (born 1978.) The latter has already had her drawings snapped up by the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum for posterity. The gallery will also bring an unusual, especially commissioned collection of “sculptural drawings.” These include Seamingly different, yet seemingly the same, produced by James Brooks this year, which depicts a baseball and a cricket ball drawn on in small pencil circles, primed in gesso and mounted together in a perspex box on a wooden plinth. Such a piece demonstrates the fabulous diversity of the works that can be viewed at Master Drawings London. Newcomers to Master Drawings London in 2009 include Madrid based José de la Mano Galeria de Arte, with an exhibition of predominantly Spanish Old Master drawings, and New York dealers Hill-Stone, Inc, specialists in Old Master and Modern works. Sphinx Fine Art will make their debut with an exhibition of Old Master and Russian drawings while scholar and dealer Florian Härb will also be showing for the first time. Master Drawings London exhibits works made on paper in a wonderfully broad array of mediums, from pencils, charcoal and ink to pastels, oils and watercolours. Lowell Libson will be showing a fine selection of specialist drawings and watercolours by artists such as Thomas Gainsborough, William Henry Hunt, Edwin Landseer and Edward Lear, in addition to a rare group of four 1663 drawings of views of London by Michel van Overbeek. New exhibitors Abbott and Holder will mark their debut at Master Drawings London with two outstanding but sharply contrasting collections of drawings. A recently discovered group of twenty watercolours by James Henry Nixon records the 1839 Eglington Tournament. This flamboyant display of knightly chivalry, attended by around 80,000 people, was a key moment in Scottish Victorian culture and the lively drawings are worked up from sketches made on the spot, endowing them with a fabulous narrative vitality. Equally fascinating are ‘Grafitti Drawsings’ by Keith Vaughan, a selection of male nudes never intended for public viewing that provide an extremely rare chance to glimpse at the intense psycho-sexual core of the artist. Day and Faber will exhibit a group of twenty-two topographical drawings by Inger Maria Burton. As the wife of a soldier, she accompanied her husband on various Service Tours of Duty around the world. This series of watercolours accurately documents their posting to Jamaica in the early 1860s when they were stationed at Newcastle, a military camp up in the St. Andrew Hills. Katrin Bellinger at Colnaghi will show a selection of drawings by known and unknown 18th- and 19th- century German artists such as Hackert, Dillis, Faber and Selleny, who were part of a group that travelled across Europe and grew very fond of Italy. Images such as Friedrich Salathé’s Wooded Landscape near Rome demonstrate the appeal of their efforts to capture the intensity of light and brightness of colour in the landscape that so enraptured them. Master Drawings London 2009 will offer a unique opportunity to see works that are rare or entirely new to the market. W·S Fine Art / Andrew Wyld will be unveiling a highly important discovery: a large and dramatic watercolour by the great Norwich School painter, John Sell Cotman (1782-1842). This major work has recently been identified as depicting the vast, derelict interior of the Dormitory of Ipswich Blackfriars. Other artists represented in Andrew Wyld’s exhibition include Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, J.M.W. Turner, R. P. Bonington, David Cox and Peter de Wint. Stephen Ongpin Fine Art will also have exciting works on show including a 1918 chalk drawing by Egon Schiele of his young nephew, made shortly before the artist’s death, which has never before been shown or published. Master Drawings will also mark the first time that Monet’s 1901 pastel view of Waterloo Bridge will be seen in public, fresh and in pristine condition, having been in a Swiss collection for over sixty years. Ongpin’s collection of over fifty Old Master, 19th- and 20th- century drawings will also contain a rare charcoal study of a reclining woman by Lucian Freud and a letter from Edouard Manet to a friend, decorated with a charming watercolour studies of cherries and plums, a document which epitomizes 19th century “lyrical sensibility.” Crispian Riley-Smith, the founder of the event, will showcase a selection of botanical works, a field of interest that has been much revived recently. He will exhibit a fine collection of botanical Old Masters alongside botanical works by the renowned contemporary watercolourist Evelyn Binns and 18th Century Dutch drawings. Helen Allen, Director of Botanical Painting and Illustration at the English Gardening School will also be giving a lecture entitled ‘Inspired by Nature, A Contemporary View’ at 2.30pm on 9th July. A series of gallery talks by guest speakers, a feature successfully launched at last year’s event, will add an extra dimension to the Master Drawings London experience and should provide highlights of the week. For instance at 4.30pm on 3rd July Professor John Ball will give a talk at Abbot and Holder on ‘Vaughan, Man and Artist,’ that will tie in perfectly with the gallery’s collection of Vaughan drawings. Several exhibitors will also hold evening receptions on 6th and 7th July. Taking place across a number of individual premises, Master Drawings London has a captivating intimacy and a vibrant immediacy that cannot be found at other art fairs and sales. The expert knowledge and quality stock of all the involved dealers is unrivalled. Every work is for sale and the event will attract not only collectors and museum curators from all over the world but will give the public a rare chance to view some of the most exceptional drawings available on the market. For further information and images: Archive
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