The 20/21 British Art Fair

Buying art is like falling in love..… sometimes it happens at first sight, other times one mysteriously finds oneself drawn to a particular painting or sculpture without quite knowing why.

The 20/21 British Art Fair is a place where love affairs happen each September. Every year, visitors explore the two floors of stands at the Royal College of Art and find new passions and meet old flames. Men and women pause, poised on the brink of romance, in front of works by artists as diverse as William Gear, David Hockney, Peter Lanyon, Tracey Emin, Alfred Wallis, Alan Davie, Graham Sutherland, Terry Frost to name a few.

An artist might grow on you over a number of years until suddenly you realise you can’t live without them – for instance it might take a while to realise that William Scott’s pencil pears are every bit as delicious as his oils and that Elisabeth Frink sculpture is positively exquisite. This might all sound flippant but giving a work of art a place in your home is very personal. It’s there because it somehow satisfies your eye and your heart.

The fact that there are some 55 galleries under one roof offers unrivalled opportunity to fall in love with works large and small costing from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of pounds – and when work is carried off by new owners, it’s like watching happy endings!

‘the British Art Fair has the reputation of being one of the happiest fairs of the year’ (Huon Mallalieu, Country Life, September 2014)