With Christmas approaching in St James’s, it feels appropriate to look back on a great year at The Nine British Art for collectors of St Ives, Modern British and Contemporary art - and have a little look forward to the first months of 2023.
We will start with the exhibition freshest in our minds. Leigh Davis is without doubt our most popular contemporary artist and a new show from the Staffordshire-based artist is always met with great enthusiasm. His third for The Nine British Art, Pushing Boundaries, saw him complete his artistic journey into abstraction through a vivid, expressive series of paintings and sculptures. Just a few of the smaller, intense and highly collectable works are still available from the show too; Bryher Headland or Composition in Yellow, White and Blue are certainly worth a closer look and currently on view in the gallery.
The second exhibition we were thrilled to present in March 2022 was Jonathan S Hooper’s Between The Granite and The Strandline. The Cornish abstract painter took inspiration from the wind-carved tors of North Cornwall’s moors, and the cliffs and bays of its coastline. This was a thoughtful show exploring memory, imagination and landscape. His layered, textured paintings revealed a mastery of colour and form; hung together in the gallery, the Monochrome series really captured the imagination, a still, reflective and nuanced collection of oils appearing to speak to one another.
In between these two shows, it was great to meet many of you again at the London Art Fair in April and British Art Fair in September. It was gratifying to see such enthusiasm not just for the work we took to both fairs but for Modern British and Contemporary art in general. At the London Art Fair - itself moved from its usual slot in January to April in 2022 - we focused on the sculpture in our collection, celebrating the work of Hepworth associates Denis Mitchell, Tommy Rowe, Brian Wall among others. There were also new works from Robert Fogell, Richard Fox and Jonathan Clarke.
At the British Art Fair in the Saatchi Gallery in September we displayed several recently acquired artworks from private collections including an important Roger Hilton from 1956, a large and impressive Robyn Denny and a complex painting by Alan Davie. While we’re on the subject of art fairs, put the London Art Fair, in your diary (Islington 18th-22nd). More details on our website in the New Year.
May we take this opportunity to thank you for your custom and support throughout 2022 and wish you a happy and peaceful seasonal holiday.
December 19, 2022
