British Art Fair brings more than 70 galleries to the Saatchi Gallery this week

More than 70 galleries are taking part in this year’s British Art Fair at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea, open from Thursday 24 to Sunday 27 September. The programme includes a tribute to the late David Hockney.

The fair deals in Modern and contemporary British art at the middle of the market, and most works are priced from £1,000 to £100,000. Some sell for a good deal more. Gay Hutson, its director, said a Henry Moore sold for £300,000 last year and a Ravilious went for more than £100,000. Abbott and Holder also sold a work from a Stanley Spencer collection for £90,000, she said.

British Art Fair galleries at the Saatchi Gallery

Austin/Desmond Fine Art has exhibited since the first fair in 1988, as have Messums and Duncan R Miller Fine Art. The Redfern Gallery and Osborne Samuel are also long-standing exhibitors. Crane Kalman Gallery has been a regular for years, alongside Pangolin London and Abbott & Holder.

From the Cumberland Hotel to Chelsea

Hutson founded the event in 1988 with Angela “Bunny” Wynn, and the first edition was held at The Cumberland Hotel. In 1991 the fair moved on to the Royal College of Art, the Kensington venue it became best known for.

Wynn died in 2018. That year the founders sold the fair to Robert and Johnny Sandelson, and it moved to the Saatchi Gallery. Ramsay Fairs, which runs the Affordable Art Fairs, bought it in 2022. Hutson has stayed on as director throughout.

She said people now expect a grander event than in the RCA days, including smarter receptions, and the much bigger Saatchi building can provide that. The fair has had lean years before: only 25 galleries exhibited in 1993. Hutson described this year’s market as difficult because of the war in Iran and the state of the economy. “We will sell, we always do,” she said.