Cork Street 100 Years: The Exhibition

The 100th anniversary of Cork Street celebrates the transformative potential of artists’ voices both within gallery spaces and outside of them, taking its title from Jean Cocteau’s seminal 1938 work La peur donnant des ailes au courage (Fear Giving Wings to Courage).

Joining Cork Street folklore, the centenary exhibition ‘Fear Gives Wings to Courage’ marks the first presentation staged across the entirety of galleries on Cork Street – all 15, during 11 – 25 July 2025, toasting the hundredth of London’s home to modern and contemporary art, alongside the 2025 Banners Commission, curated by Tarini Malik.

Gesturing to the street’s long-established cultural history, inspiration arrives from Cocteau’s inaugural show at Guggenheim Jeune, also the inaugural show of the gallery, where Peggy Guggenheim began her rousing impact on the art world at 30 Cork Street, 2nd Floor. Championing contemporary art and the avant-garde in Britain at a time of conservative taste, with repercussions worldwide, Cocteau’s showcase ran from 24 January – 12 February 1938, the titular work becoming mythic: decreed obscene by customs, it was impounded at Croydon airport, released only on the condition it was to be shown in a back room.

The inevitability of the artist’s expression and the bravery of supporting it recalls Cork Street’s pioneering role in transforming London into a hub for international art practices in the twentieth century, while also making it one of the key platforms in Europe for the expansion of Surrealist and Dadaist movements.

Alessandro Raho, installation view, 2025, Alison Jacques, Courtesy Alison Jacques & Alessandro Raho, Photo: Michael Brzezinsk

Lucy Jones, installation view, ‘Totally, completely, and absolutely Lucy Jones’, 2025, Flowers Gallery, 21 Cork Street, Courtesy Flowers Gallery, Photo: Antonio Parente

Felix Shumba, The yard friezes at the unknown (in thought of hymn rain), 2024, Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 40 × 50 cm / 15 ¾ × 19 ¾ ″, Courtesy Felix Shumba, Photo: Deniz Guzel, Tiwani Contemporary

At Alison Jacques, Alessandro Raho (b. 1971) shows a new body of work that responds to the exhibition theme. Raho shares Jean Cocteau’s fascination with magic and sees his Playing Cards (2025) and Levitating Woman (2024) as reminiscent of Cocteau’s love for illusion, and the magic that permeates his films. Caroline Coon’s (b. 1945) works at Stephen Friedman Gallery are presented in dialogue with ceramics created by Jean Cocteau. Inspired by feminism and the politics of sexual liberation, Caroline Coon’s unique paintings contest binary notions of gender and oppressive patriarchal values. Three decades of Lucy Jones’ (b. 1955) intimate self-portraits at Flowers Gallery challenge societal constraints of femininity and conventional aesthetic norms. The British artist has established herself for her distinctively provocative portraits, identified by raw and expressive brushwork paired with vibrant colour. Alon Zakaim Fine Art highlights the pioneering Impressionist artists who, despite facing intense criticism and rejection from their contemporaries, overcame these challenges to lay the foundations for a new visual language. The work of Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903), Eugène Boudin (1824 – 1898), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 – 1919), William Gropper (1897 – 1977) and Albert Gleizes (1881 – 1953) is on view. Tiwani Contemporary feature the works of Virginia Chihota (b. 1983) and Felix Shumba (b. 1989). Both artists present surreal interpretations of liberating emotional and historically traumatised landscapes, echoing some of the aesthetic, critical, and political themes associated with the Surrealist movement and the interwar period.

Wassily Kandinsky, Pfeil zum Kreis (Arrow toward the circle), 1930, Oil on canvas, 80 × 110 cm, Courtesy Wassily Kandinsky, Photo: Stephen White & Co, Nahmad Projects

Allotments under Caiyuanba Bridge, Chongqing, China, 2017, chromogenic print, 120 × 150 cm, edition of 3, Messums

(top left artwork) Patrick Procktor RA (1936–2003), Sadie and Prudence, 1969/70, Aquatint, 25.4 × 45.1 cm, Courtesy of The Redfern Gallery, Photo: Alex Fox; (top right artwork) Patrick Procktor RA (1936–2003), My Gardenia, 1969, Lithograph, 35 × 67 cm,
Courtesy of The Redfern Gallery, Photo: Alex Fox; (bottom left artwork) Patrick Procktor RA (1936–2003),Ossie, Gervase and Eric, 1969, Aquatint, 27.8 × 88 cm, Courtesy of The Redfern Gallery, Photo: Alex Fox; (bottom right artwork) Patrick Procktor RA (1936–2003), Departure, 1969, Etching and aquatint, 40.5 × 75.7 cm, Courtesy of The Redfern Gallery, Photo: Alex Fox

Juan Gris’ (1887 – 1927) Le joueur de guitare (Arlequin à la guitare) (1918) encapsulates the defiant spirit of artistic reinvention and resistance at Nahmad Projects. In addition, Wassily Kandinsky’s (1866 – 1944) Pfeil zum Kreis (1930) commemorates Peggy Guggenheim’s pioneering programme at Guggenheim Jeune, the site of his first UK solo exhibition in 1938. Messums London‘s presentation of work by Yan Wang Preston (b. 1976) questions the socio-political forces that shape our environment, pushing back against dominant narratives of place and belonging, the tension between power and vulnerability, and touches on censorship. Invitation to the Voyage is a series of five prints made in 1969 by the painter and printmaker, Patrick Procktor RA (1936 – 2003) at The Redfern Gallery. These lyrical and dreamlike compositions of his boyfriend, Gervase Griffiths, and friends – the designer, Ossie Clark, and the actor, Eric Emerson – relate to poetic reverie, and the spiritual ascent into the unknown.

Peter Blake, ‘Fear Gives Wings to Courage’, Courtesy the artist and Waddington Custot

Shirin Neshat, Land of Dreams, 2019, Video and sound installation, Goodman Gallery

Osborne Samuel Gallery, ‘Modern British Art’, August 2025

Michel Pérez Pollo, Two Box, 2015, Oil on canvas, Overall: 200 × 260 cm / 78 ¾ × 102 ⅜ ″, Two parts, each: 200 × 130 cm / 78 ¾ × 51 ⅛ ″, Holtermann Fine Art

Waddington Custot showcase Peter Blake’s (b. 1932) enduring practice which continues to explore the subversive potential of visual culture through collage, portraiture, and the appropriation of everyday imagery, with new works exhibited alongside a selection of the artist’s earlier works. Goodman Gallery present one of the films from Shirin Neshat’s (b. 1957) Dreamers series, the UK premiere of the work. Dreamers is a trilogy of black-and-white video installations which explores the world of dreams through the perspectives of three women. The films are semi-autobiographical and are inspired by Neshat’s own dreams. Nodding to the history of Cork Street and the pioneering artists whose work was first showcased here, MASSIMODECARLO‘s display of works by Yang Pei-Ming (b. 1960) is a series that focuses on Francis Bacon while Osborne Samuel celebrate the legacy of the street with the presentation of work by Barbara Hepworth (1903 – 1975) and Henry Moore (1898 – 1986) who were included in an exhibition titled ‘Unit One’ in 1934. Holtermann Fine Art exhibits a painting by Michel Pérez Pollo (b. 1981), whose minimalist aesthetic reimagines a Surrealist vision for contemporary audiences. Marianne Holtermann’s gallery resides at 30 Cork Street – the address of Guggenheim Jeune.