LAW Highlights from Frieze Masters 2022
LAW Editorial | 12 October 2023
Possibly the most anticipated art fairs of the year, Frieze London and Frieze Masters return to Regent's Park this week. Frieze Masters offers a unique contemporary perspective on historical art, from collectable objects to significant masterpieces.
Click on the stand numbers to discover further details about London Art Week participants exhibiting at the fair this year.
Agnews
Courtesy of Agnews
Established in 1817, Agnews is one of London's leading art dealerships and has acted as principal agents and advisors to some of the most important collectors of their time.
This poetic landscape by the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens is on view at Frieze Masters. Suffering from a bronchial condition and following the doctor's orders, Stevens, who lived between Brussels and Paris, spent a great deal of time on the Normandy coast. In this work, he depicts the moonlight at Le Havre, a major port in northern France's Normandy region where the Seine River meets the English Channel. As in his genre scenes, the thick paint gives an almost sparkling quality to this work. The moonlight appears to glisten on the ripples of the sea, enhanced by the delicate yet pronounced ridges of paint.
Gaze at this masterpiece on Stand C3.
Didier Aaron
Paul César Helleu (1859 - 1927), La jolie modiste, Presumed Portrait of Gabrielle Chanel, known as Coco Chanel Black, red and white chalks, 470 x 395 mm. Inscribed, signed and dated in black chalk on the right: La jolie modiste / Helleu / Deauville 1912.
Courtesy of Didier Aaron
Attention to all fashionistas! Didier Aaron shows an elegant portrait of Coco Chanel by Paul César Helleu, "La jolie modiste" at Frieze Masters. Paul César Helleu worked as a painter and an engraver in France at the turn of the century. His work epitomises the charm and elegance of French culture during the Belle Époque - with all its verve and focus on fashion. Today, he is famous for his portraits of society ladies and of Alice Guérin, his childhood sweetheart who later became his wife.
Discover the gallery's selection on Stand A2.
Elliott Fine Art
Courtesy of Elliott Fine Art
Presenting the finest artworks of their type, both from an aesthetic and historical perspective, Elliott Fine Art brings to the fore many forgotten masters, all deserving wider recognition and acclaim.
Exhibiting for the very first time at Frieze Masters, the gallery is showing Lilly Steiner's portrait: an exceptional artistic testament to a unique cultural moment in 1920s Paris, as well as Anna Oelmacher's 1930 depiction of a nude model in the studio, a rare example of Hungarian Modernism. Frans David Oerder's portrait of a Zulu is a significant rediscovery, since this can be counted amongst the very earliest non-ethnographic depictions of a Zulu by a European artist. Finally, Juana Romani's La Vénitienne from 1892 is also on view, it is an important reappearance in the artist's oeuvre, dating to the early years of her short but glittering career.
Explore all the artworks on Stand G9.
Lullo Pampoulides
Courtesy of Lullo Pampoulides
In this arresting full-length portrait, more than two metres in height, the Austrian painter Ludwig Ferdinand Graf depicts the important Chinese diplomat, politician, ambassador and minister, Yang Tscheng (also known as Yang Tcheng or Yang Sheng) in 1906, at the time of his appointment as Minister (ambassador) to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This exceptional portrait, presented by Lullo • Pampoulides, is a rare example of a celebrative - yet surprisingly anti-academic - representation of a Chinese ambassador by a Western artist of this period.
The canvas is a rare and extraordinary testimony to the attire, symbols and image of a leading scholar-official at the end of Qing dynasty - and therefore a rare opportunity to deepen the understanding of a Chinese state portrait - but conducted as a manifesto of Viennese Impressionist painting. Unsurprisingly this canvas, a celebration of both the sitter and the artist, remained one of the most ambitious, iconic and published in Graf's oeuvre - celebrated in numerous international exhibitions, including the VII Biennale di Venezia in 1907.
Visit the gallery on Stand B3.
Moretti Fine Art
Courtesy Moretti Fine Art
This birth tray from the Serristori collection is an item of considerable artistic and cultural interest. Overlooked by art historians for far too long as a 'minor' art form, the birth tray (or desco da parto) was commissioned to celebrate a child's birth and was frequently painted on both sides.
During a mother's confinement, a birth tray would be covered with a special cloth and laden with gifts as visitors were admitted to the bedchamber-turned-reception room to view the new arrival and congratulate the new mother. Birth, like marriage, was not a private moment solely for the closest members of the family, but a social ritual extending to a circle that grew proportionately with the family's social standing.
Discover this and other fascinating works by Giovanni Baronzio and Girolamo Della Robbia on Moretti Fine Art's Stand D1.
Raccanello Leprince
Courtesy of Raccanello Leprince
Raccanello Leprice is showcasing Eternal Histories Nicola and the Urbino School Myths and Legends on Renaissance Italian Maiolica.
Don't miss the exceptional dish painted with Europa and the bull from the celebrated 'Calini Service'.
In 1524 the Duchess of Urbino, Eleonora Gonzaga, commissioned this wonderful service of istoriato (storytelling) maiolica from the master maiolica painter Nicola da Urbino as a gift to her mother, Isabella d'Este in Mantova.
Find out more on Stand D7.
Sam Fogg
Courtesy of Sam Fogg
Sam Fogg is presenting an exciting group of medieval objects, which include two Romanesque stylobate lions, a monumental painting by Alejo Fernandez depicting the Apparition of Christ, an effigy of Riccardo Rota by Giovanni da Nola and a silver-gilt guild cup by Hans Greiff. The gallery will also be participating in this year's Stand Out exhibition, which focuses on global exchange.
Find Sam Fogg on Stand C1.
Stephen Ongpin Fine Art
Courtesy of Stephen Ongpin Fine Art
Stephen Ongpin Fine Art is based in Mayfair and specialises in Master drawings, watercolours and oil sketches dating from the 16th through the 20th centuries.
Visit Stephen Ongpin Fine Art at Frieze Masters on Stand D6 to see their selection of drawings by such artists as Avigdor Arikha, Frank Auerbach, Giacomo Balla, Giovanni Boldini, Claudio Bravo, Lucian Freud, Domenico Gnoli, Henri Matisse, John Minton, Ben Nicholson, Pablo Picasso, Austin Osman Spare, Christopher Wood and many others.
A full list of works can be accessed digitally here.
FRIEZE MASTERS runs from October 12 - 16, 2022, at The Regent's Park, London.
To learn more please visit www.frieze.com/fairs/frieze-masters.