The gallery was originally called ‘Ancient & Modern’, established 2006 on Whitecross Street in a former second-hand record shop near Barbican. In 2015 it moved to St George Street, Mayfair for a year and renamed eponymously after the owner. In 10 years the gallery presented 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; and showed either well established, or sometimes less known, contemporary artists such as Hans Peter Feldmann and Kai Althoff or Lourdes Castro and Annea Lockwood respectively.
In October 2016 we took a break from programming to have what has turned out to be a most welcome extended sabbatical, reflecting the now widely acknowledged need for small galleries to find alternatives to the traditional gallery model. We continue to work with a small group of our artists to advise and help them make publications, museum and gallery exhibitions, or to have a studio visit, a drink, or just a chat.
Bruce Haines is currently a TECHNE postgraduate researcher at Kingston University, entering the 3rd year of his PhD which appropriately looks at the anthropology of an emerging gallery and its relationship with ‘business’.
September 2019