Around the galleries
Now in its 30th year, the London Park Lane Arms Fair returns with its annual array of fine arms and armoury. Elsewhere in the capital, impressive surveys of Freud, Hirst and mid-century British art can be found.
Monique Kent, Wednesday, 1st February 2012
London’s Marriott Hotel, nestled off Grosvenor Square, provides the backdrop for the annual London Park Lane Arms Fair (4 March; www.londonarmsfair.com). Now in its 30th year, the one-day event showcases fine arms and armour dating from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century. This year’s 40 international dealers and auction houses present an array of swords, firearms and armour originating everywhere from Europe to the Middle East, together with accessories and reference books for collectors.
Returning British specialist Peter Finer offers a rare German parade burgonet dating to around 1585 (Fig. 2). The burgonet is formed in one piece with a rounded crown. An oval cartouche at the left and right sides of the roped medial comb features representations of Hercules fighting Achelous transformed into a serpent, and Poseidon holding a trident. It would have been worn in the spectacular parades that formed part of court ceremonial in Renaissance Europe, which in turn emulated the triumphal processions of ancient Rome.
African and Oceanic arms are with Brussels-based exhibitor Patrick Mestdagh, who unveils a 19th-century ampinga (Fig. 1). This wood and hide shield was made during the 19th century by the Tanala, a tribe of skilled woodsmen that inhabit a forested region of south-eastern Madagascar.
For collectors of engraved firearms, Bonhams reveals a fine pair of English flintlock holster pistols. Made by Joseph Heylin in 1768, these two guns are part of the Norman Dixon collection and are unique on account of their highly decorated solid silver barrels, locks and mounts. Estimated at £40,000–£60,000, the pistols go under the hammer at Bonhams on 18 April.
David Oliver, the organiser of the fair, offers a rare treat for enthusiasts of early 15th-century European weaponry. He is showcasing a medieval dagger found at Castillon in the Dordogne, the site of the last battle of the Hundred Years War which took place on 17 July 1453. It is particularly rare since the majority of weapons found at Castillon were swords. The fair’s catalogue, which has been published by Apollo since 1984, provides an important reference tool for both collectors in the field and students of military history.
Elsewhere in London, an enticing selection of British art is on display this February. To coincide with the National Portrait Gallery’s major retro-spective of Lucian Freud, Blain|Southern (21 Dering Street; +44 (0)20 7493 4492) stages ‘Lucian Freud: Drawings’ (17 February–5 April). The exhibition presents a wide-ranging survey of the artist’s work on paper, beginning in the 1940s and spanning Freud’s entire career. Watercolours, drawings, etchings and gouaches are on loan from both public and private collections, and provide insight into an essential aspect of the artist’s practice which is often overshadowed by his painting. The pencil drawing Startled Man: Self Portrait (for Equilibriad, 1948) is among the 100 works on show (Fig. 4), many of which have never previously been on public view.
Meanwhile, Browse & Darby (19 Cork Street; +44 (0)20 7734 7984) presents its second solo show of the British artist James Lloyd (10 February–8 March). The exhibition offers an opportunity to view Lloyd’s portraits as well as a selection of his still lifes, landscapes and nudes. A particular highlight is a study for Lloyd’s portrait of the Queen, one of two small-scale works produced as studies for the finished painting that now resides at Queen’s College, Cambridge.
Mid-20th-century work is on offer courtesy of ‘British Pop Art’ (7 February–9 March) at Whitford Fine Art (6 Duke Street; +44 (0)20 7930 9332), and features pieces by Peter Blake, Allen Jones and Clive Barker. A stone’s throw away, the Albemarle Gallery (49 Albemarle Gallery; +44 (0)20 7499 1616) presents the contemporary Scottish painter Adrian Wiszniewski (3–25 February). Part of the group of artists known as the New Glasgow Boys, the show displays a large selection of Wiszniewski’s vibrant figurative painting.
Preceding the first major retrospective of Damien Hirst’s work at Tate Modern this April, Gagosian Gallery (6–24 Britannia Street; +44 (0)20 7841 9960) celebrates the work of the British artist with ‘The Complete Spot Paintings 1986–2011’ (12 January–18 February). The exhibition takes place simultaneously across the Gagosian Gallery’s 11 international spaces, and the unusual triangular piece Levorphanol (Fig. 3) is among the 300 spot paintings on show around the world.
There is still time to catch ‘Pascin: Master of Line’ at Aktis Gallery (10 Park Place; +44 (0)20 7629 6531), which presents watercolours, drawings and oils by the 20th-century Bulgarian artist, Julius Mordecai Pascin (until 29 February). Following his arrival in the French capital in 1905, Pascin went on to become one of the leaders of the group of non-French artists known as the Ecole de Paris.
Finally, after more than 100 years on New Bond Street, Mallet is relocating to 37 Dover Street (+44 (0)20 7499 7411). Its new home is an elegant 18th-century Mayfair townhouse, formerly the London palace for the Bishop of Ely. Ely House, as the building is known, is scheduled to open for business next month.
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Around the galleries
Now in its 30th year, the London Park Lane Arms Fair returns with its annual array of fine arms and armoury. Elsewhere in the capital, impressive surveys of Freud, Hirst and mid-century British art can be found.
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