The gallery, née Ancient & Modern, was established in 2006 on Whitecross Street in a former second hand record shop near Barbican. In 2015 we moved to St George Street, Mayfair, changing name in the process. The gallery staged over 60 exhibitions and participated at over 40 art fairs including Frieze London & New York, Art Cologne, Liste Basel, Nada Miami & New York and Armory. The gallery often included early-mid 20th century historical works of interest to the artists we work with, including Ian Hamilton-Finlay, László Moholy-Nagy, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Joe Orton and Maeve Gilmore.
Since October 2016 we halted the programme, as visitors were rare, and gambling on art fairs became an increasingly fruitless proposition. Also I simply had had enough of operating in an expanding vacuum of apparent disinterest, particularly exhibited by a public sector whose deference to the blue chip mainstream, with a few fantastic exceptions, is depressing. We work now in a relaxed and committed way with our artists to support them on museum and other gallery exhibitions and public commissions when they crop up, and publications – notably Black Dog Publishing who made books with Jane England and Volker Eichelmann in 2016 and will do same with Des Hughes and Tim Braden in 2017. The gallery owner is currently undertaking a TECHNE funded PhD at Kingston University researching art and business.