Mayfair Art Weekend and Sculpture Trail 2021 at Cork Street

Mayfair Art Weekend and Mayfair Sculpture Trail return for 2021, bringing all the fêted joy of experiencing work in-situ again. Allow yourself to wander with encouraged perspective.

Cork Street participates with special opening hours the weekend of 25 – 27 June, days of synchronicity in which the Sculpture Trail also culminates.

Installation image of Peter Blake: Time Traveller at Waddington Custot. Courtesy: Waddington Custot. Photography: Rob Harris.

Waddington Custot presents Peter Blake: Time Traveller, at 11 Cork Street. This comprehensive survey show by the legendary British artist includes a number of important museum loans, investigating the fundamentals of Blake’s practice in collage over a career spanning seven decades. As historic work shares space with new, so does the bookshelf: a new monograph, Peter Blake: Collage, has been published by Thames & Hudson, featuring a foreword by the artist’s eminent schoolfriend, David Hockney.

Shirazeh Houshiary, Forgetting the Word, 2020, pigment and pencil on white Aquacryl on aluminium, 190.3 x 190 x 5.2 cm / 74 7/8 x 74 3/4 x 2 in © Shirazeh Houshiary, courtesy Lisson Gallery.

Lisson Gallery presents Shirazeh Houshiary: Pneuma, at 22 Cork Street. The artist’s thirteenth exhibition with the gallery is their first in this space, presenting works that arise from a meditative practice that takes breath as its medium and conceptual framework. Inhabiting her canvases, which are placed flat on the floor of her studio, the artist moves across them, building layers of inscriptions on top of the sediments formed from pouring water mixed with pure pigment. Mind and body unify in surfaces taut with a connective energy and mesmerising suspension.

The final piece, #16, in this year’s Mayfair Sculpture Trail, Long Hair by Julian Opie can also be found on Cork Street.

Two unique artworks by François Morellet, 5 Impressions décalées: Bleu, Vert, Jaune, Orange et Rouge,1969; 20% de carrés dégradés pivotés au centre 5 fois,1970. Photography by Robert Harris, courtesy of The Mayor Gallery.

The Mayor Gallery presents In Real Life, at 21 Cork Street (First Floor). After months of URL living, The Mayor Gallery’s summer exhibition focuses on IRL sensations, curating 35 works by artists from 12 different countries, each renowned for their research on texture, colours, light, optical challenges or kinetic works, from the 1950s to present.

The gallery is also participating in the Mayfair Art Galleries’ Access All Areas event on 26 June. Open to 17-26 year-olds, it offers insight for those looking to explore or further a career in the arts or creative industries (book here).

Paintings by Tesfaye Urgessa displayed at Saatchi Yates Gallery. Left to Right: VUPs 13 (the preacher), 2021 Oil on canvas, 98 3/8 x 74 3/4 in / 250 x 190 cm; From light to sight, 2019, Oil on canvas, 70 7/8 x 98 3/8 in / 180 x 250 cm; Sleeping baby bird 2, 2021, Oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 in / 200 x 200 cm; Missing busy bee 1, 2021, Oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 in / 200 x 200 cm; Die beobachteten 19, 2021, Oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 in / 200 x 200 cm; The holy family despair, 2021, Oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 in / 200 x 200 cm © Tesfaye Urgessa, courtesy of Saatchi Yates.

Saatchi Yates presents Tesfaye Urgessa, at 6 Cork Street. Tesfaye Urgessa lives and works in Germany, having emigrated from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Studying under modern master Tadesse Mesfin in Ethiopia, and later graduating from the Staatlichen Akademie in Stuttgart, Urgessa connects Ethiopian iconography, German Neo-expressionism from the 1980s and a deep fascination with traditional figurative painting, to create a unique and striking language.

Shared Sculptures: Bill Woodrow and Richard Deacon, Ready Rubbed, 1999, bronze, stainless steel, mdf, 134.5 × 37.5 × 39.5 cm (53 × 14 3⁄4 × 15 1⁄2 inches). Courtesy of Holtermann Fine Art.

Holtermann Fine Art presents Shared Sculptures: Bill Woodrow and Richard Deacon, at 30  Cork Street. Richard Deacon and Bill Woodrow have been making ‘shared sculptures’ together for over thirty years. In fact, they’ve made over sixty since 1990. Often playful, and in surprising directions from each individual artists’ practice, their exhibition is the first to showcase works made throughout this period.

Browse & Darby presents Gwen John; Lucian Freud: Three Etchings, at 19 Cork Street. The gallery is staging works on paper by one of Britain ’s most important modern female painters, Gwen John (1876-1939). The lover of Auguste Rodin and sister of the flamboyant artist Augustus John, her work was often overlooked, yet she was amongst the first female students to study at the Slade School of Art and exhibited with major galleries and at important exhibitions, including the New English Art Club, the Société des Artistes Français and the Salon d’Automne. This exhibition comprises watercolours, gouaches and pencil drawings from the 1910s and 1920s.

A simultaneous exhibition collects three etchings by Lucian Freud (1922-2011) alongside their original etching plates in a unique display. Dating from the 1980s, the etchings are large-scale nudes of model Sophie de Stempel, and relate closely to the paintings the artist was working on at the time. The plates have never been shown in public before.

The Royal Academy of Arts presents RA Schools Show at 6 Burlington Gardens.
Our neighbour presents its annual exhibition of works by artists graduating from the UK’s longest established contemporary art school, the RA Schools. Experience emerging artists in a range of media within the rarely-seen working studios inside the Royal Academy.

Visitor information: the galleries on Cork Street are taking the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of both their staff and visitors and ask that masks are worn throughout the duration of your visit. Please note that there are limited visitor numbers at any one time in the galleries to respect social distancing. Please contact the galleries individually for further information.