Bigger and brighter than before, the British Art Fair rolls into town

This week, the 30-year-old British Art Fair opens its doors in a bold new location. Having spent most of its life at the Royal College of Art in Kensington, this year – having been bought by the art dealer, Robert Sandelson, and his brother Johnny, a property investor – the fair (formerly known as the 20th Century British Art Fair) has transferred to The Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea.

Until now, the Saatchi Gallery has been known primarily as a venue for the latest contemporary art, and for selling exhibitions and art fairs of new art from far-flung Asian locations. With its broadly lit, minimalist rooms, it favours the large-scale paintings and sculptures collected by Charles Saatchi. 

With the British Art Fair, though, the clock shifts backwards to encompass the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when modern art in Britain began, and when artworks tended to be smaller in scale.

However, the larger space seems to have enabled exhibitors to think bigger. Piano Nobile gallery, for instance, will be showing the expansive abstract paintings made in the Sixties and Seventies by John Golding (perhaps better known as an art historian) and the sculptures of his friend, the sculptor Anthony Caro, and will be hosting a talk by Dr David Anfam, who presided over the brilliant American Abstract Expressionist exhibition at the Royal Academy two years ago. 

Another exhibition-style display will be a retrospective of work by Bridget Riley, for which several exhibitors have combined forces to contribute paintings and prints priced from ￡5,000 to ￡500,000. 

The most valuable work of art – the most valuable ever shown at the fair, in fact – will be an outdoor sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, which will be displayed on the Belgrave St Ives stand with a price tag of ￡3 million. 

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