Around the Galleries Samuel Reilly
This month, highlights from the New Hall Art Collection in Cambridge can be seen at London Art Fair, while Master Drawings New York returns to the Upper East Side
There are as many stories behind the creation of art collections as there are collections themselves, but there can be few that will bring a smile to the lips as surely as that of the New Hall Art Collection at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. In 1986, a residency by the conceptual feminist artist Mary Kelly led the president and fellows of the college to reflect on the lack of representation of women artists in the UK. Together with Ann Jones, curator of the Arts Council collection, they compiled a list of the top 100 women artists working in the UK, and sent each a letter asking if they would like to donate a work. ‘They thought that maybe a few would say yes,’ Naomi Polonsky, acting curator of the collection, tells me. ‘As it turned out, 75 artists donated works.’
From this nucleus, it has now grown to become the largest collection in Europe of art by women, with more than 500 works and having branched out from British artists to encompass the likes of Judy Chicago. It has been open to the public since 1992 – but, as Polonsky acknowledges, ‘the truth is that the collection is not particularly well known – it’s like a hidden treasure.’ It is much to be welcomed, then, that a selection of highlights will go on display in the UK capital for the first time this month, as the latest of London Art Fair’s annual series of partnerships with regional museums. The works on show at the Business Design Centre in Islington, grouped around the themes of ‘Myth-making and Self-fashioning’, span the life of the collection – from an early donation by Paula Rego, depicting the 14th-century Galician noblewoman Inês de Castro, to a recently acquired painting by Faith Ringgold. Further highlights include an early etching by Tracy Emin, Sixty a Day Woman (1986), and the Swedish artist and eco-feminist Monica Sjöö’s numinous Dancing Women Dancing Stones (1993).
The fair this year also welcomes more than 100 participating galleries to the Business Design Centre. Its particular strength remains modern and contemporary British art; Thomas Spencer brings a fine watercolour by John Nash, Row of Trees, that has not been displayed in public before, while Waterhouse & Dodd offers paintings and drawings by Dorothy Mead and Dennis Creffield, two students of David Bomberg who developed rich and varied styles of their own. Gerber Fine Art presents a wide-ranging display of modern Scottish artists – including works by Joan Eardley, following on from a number of institutional displays across Scotland celebrating the artist’s centenary last year – and James Hyman Gallery brings a hand-woven tapestry by R.B. Kitaj.
The fair’s ‘Platform’ section, curated again this year by Candida Stevens and including 10 galleries, explores the confluence of music and contemporary art; Stevens’ own gallery offers the jazzy abstract paintings that comprised Vanessa Jackson’s recent street-art installation in Piccadilly, UpTownDancing (2021). Meanwhile, as part of ‘Art Projects’ – the fair’s programme for emerging galleries from around the world – Perve Gallery from Lisbon is presenting a display that will see artists create pieces in situ at the fair, responding to the work of the Portuguese artist and poet Cruzeiro Seixas, who died in late 2020. It’s a fitting tribute to Seixas, who, as a follower of Surrealism, was well aware of the artistic possibilities of chance – and another fine example of the many ways in which the fair continues to offer fresh discoveries.