The City Behind the Fair

On December 1, 2026, London’s national museums will have been free for 25 years, and in September the culture secretary promised they would stay that way, as The Art Newspaper reported. Looking costs nothing here. Making is another matter.

The arithmetic is short. A studio in Acme’s Propeller Factory in Deptford rents at £15 to £19 a square foot, according to Arts Professional. The shops on New Bond Street pay £2,750, by Cushman & Wakefield’s count. The median visual artist in Britain earns £12,500 a year, a University of Glasgow study found. The city has the most generous front door in the art world and one of its hardest back rooms.

The back room keeps shrinking. In 2014 City Hall counted 298 studio buildings housing more than 11,500 artists and warned that 28% were under threat within five years. Cubitt, artist-run since 1991, is leaving its Islington building after the landlord declined to renew the lease, by its own account. The counter-move is ownership: in January Acme bought the Deptford building, where 180 artists work.

Frieze week, with the fairs open October 14–18, is the most expensive five days in this economy, and the tents in Regent’s Park are the least typical thing in it. The full argument, eight essays on empire, class, money, rent, the art schools and the rest, is on the London page at My Biennale, with the national picture in Art in the United Kingdom. This page is the working map: who is making the art in 2026, where the next cohort shows, which private collections still open their doors, where the galleries have moved, and what a first purchase involves.

Each of the sixteen has a documented 2026 fact: a shortlist, a museum show, a gallery exhibition this month, or a place at the fair. A gallery is named only where a source names it, and an artist is called London-based only where a source says so.

Also in Town

The senior names are showing on paper and in the park. Antony Gormley has more than twenty new works on paper at Cristea Roberts from October 14, and Bridget Riley is at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert to November 27, both as listed by GalleriesNow. Conrad Shawcross and Catriona Robertson are among the eleven artists of Frieze Sculpture, free in the English Gardens to November 1.

One absence shapes the year. David Hockney died at home in London on June 11, aged 88. Dates and addresses are in What to See; the fair’s artist lists are in Artists and Works.

London does not anoint its young artists one at a time. It moves them in cohorts, through a small number of juried lists, and the lists are public. No claim is made here for any one name.

Focus at Frieze London

Focus is the fair’s section for younger galleries. The London galleries returning in 2026 are a. SQUIRE, Brunette Coleman, Ginny on Frederick, Harlesden High Street, Nicoletti, Public, Niru Ratnam and Rose Easton, with Heidi, which moved from Berlin to Maddox Street in September, by Frieze’s account. Rose Easton brings Amanda Moström, according to the gallery. The artists on the other London stands were not found in the published sources. Not yet announced

New Contemporaries

The annual open selection of recent graduates chose 26 artists for 2026, picked by Pio Abad, Louise Giovanelli and Grace Ndiritu. The exhibition was at the South London Gallery from January 30 to April 12, free, then at MIMA in Middlesbrough until August 16. The full list is on New Contemporaries’ site.

The Royal Academy Schools

The Schools have run since 1769, charge no fees and take between 10 and 17 students a year, by the Royal Academy’s account. The twelve who graduated in the 2026 show, June 12–28, were Lolly Adams, Mohammed Adel, Maya Gurung-Russell Campbell, Dwayne Coleman, Katrina Cowling, Vitaliia Fedorova, Rahima Gambo, Georgia Kerr, Djofray Makumbu, Robert O’Leary, Francisca Pinto and Zachariah Riley. A further Schools exhibition, Day, is free at Burlington House until November 8.

The Jarman Award

Film London’s prize for artists working in moving image has shortlisted Sadia Pineda Hameed, Ilona Sagar, Rhea Storr and Alia Syed. Their work is at the Whitechapel Gallery from November 17 to December 13, and the winner is announced on November 24, according to Film London.

Prizes That Buy

In 2025 the Arts Council Collection bought Alex Margo Arden from Ginny on Frederick, and she won the first Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation Prize; Bogdan Ablozhnyy, shown by a. SQUIRE, won the Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Award, with an exhibition listed for November 2027, all by Frieze’s account. The 2026 funds are set out on the People page.

One fixture has left. The Max Mara Art Prize for Women, long a London prize, is running its tenth edition with Museum MACAN in Jakarta, Aesthetica reports. Single source

London’s largest private gifts go to public museums. Its private museums are fewer, and two of the best known are shut.

Crankstart, the foundation of Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman, and the Julia Rausing Trust each pledged £150 million to the National Gallery, as The Art Newspaper reported, and the Reuben Foundation gave £30 million to the Courtauld, by Museums Journal’s account.

The Zabludowicz Collection closed its Kentish Town space, a converted Methodist church, in 2023. On June 25, 2026, Christie’s London sold 56 works from the collection for £15.4 million with fees, with a further 44 offered online; the top lot was Philip Guston’s Mirror Head (1977) at £3.9 million. The Art Newspaper, which reported the figures, put the consignment at about 1% of an 8,000-work collection and recalled that in 2021 a group of 25 artists had withdrawn their authorship of works in it as part of a boycott campaign.

Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery described itself as temporarily closed when its site was read on October 5. Its last exhibition, of work by Jack White, ended on September 13. No reopening date and no reason were published, and none is offered here.

The new doors belong to a different kind of founder. YDP, opened by the collector Yan Du in October 2025, shows Asian and Asian-diaspora art in a Grade I listed townhouse on Bedford Square. Ibraaz, developed by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation, opened the same month on Mortimer Street and charges nothing, as Museums Journal reported.

The middle of the London trade spent 2026 changing address. The closures made the headlines; the moves to larger rooms were more numerous.

Cork Street

The street marked a century of galleries in 2025: the Mayor Gallery opened there in 1925, and a dealer at Waddington Custot told The Art Newspaper that occupancy had been full for three years. Two of the arrivals that article celebrated have since gone. Stephen Friedman Gallery, at 5-6 Cork Street from 2023, entered administration on February 2, as the same paper reported, and Tiwani Contemporary, which had announced a Cork Street gallery, has closed in London and Lagos, by Artforum’s headline. Single source Alison Jacques, Goodman Gallery and Frieze’s No.9 remain.

Mayfair and St James’s

This is where the growth is. Sadie Coles HQ is in its first full year at 17 Savile Row. Modern Art has consolidated on Bennet Street, having left its Clerkenwell factory. Edel Assanti opened a second space at 11 Bury Street in June, according to Artnet News; GRIMM has a new gallery on Duke Street, and Annely Juda Fine Art has moved to Hanover Square, by Artlyst’s account. Heidi arrived from Berlin on Maddox Street in September, as The Art Newspaper reported. Going the other way, Gagosian has left the Burlington Arcade while keeping Grosvenor Hill.

Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury and Soho

Tiderip moved to 17 Percy Street on October 7, by its own announcement, and the two new foundations, Ibraaz and YDP, both opened in October 2025. In Soho, TINA, founded in 2024, shows at Frieze London for the first time.

Clerkenwell and the East

Emalin took the 5,000-square-foot Helmet Row factory that Modern Art vacated and kept the Clerk’s House in Shoreditch, so both addresses are current. Further east the pattern was accretion: Maureen Paley added 4 Herald Street and Rose Easton doubled its floor in 2025, as frieze reported. Beers London, near the Barbican, closed in August after 14 years, according to Artnet News.

Bermondsey and the South

White Cube Bermondsey is still the anchor. Sid Motion Gallery, opened in South Bermondsey in 2015, closes after its final show on October 31. Its founder told The Art Newspaper in August that she was stopping while ahead; more on the People page.

Artist-Run and Unlisted

The rooms that set the tone are rarely on a fair map. Plaster’s August list of artist-run spaces includes Mackintosh Lane in Homerton, where shows last days, not weeks; St Chads Projects in King’s Cross, in a former hospital building; Auto Italia in Bethnal Green; and Cubitt, which is raising £100,000 for its move. Single source

Nothing here is investment advice, and nothing here predicts a price. What follows is a list of published prices, fees and rules, in the order a first-time buyer meets them.

Look for Nothing

Commercial galleries are free, and so is Frieze Sculpture. The free list will fill a week.

What Has a Published Price

Very little, so these are markers and not a range. Allied Editions, which sells artists’ editions at Frieze London for seven non-profit galleries, started at around £100 in 2025, Frieze said at the time; the scheme is set out in the Serpentine’s release. Its 2026 artists and prices were not found. At the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea, October 14–18, every work is priced between £100 and £10,000. LAPADA, in Berkeley Square from October 27, runs from £500 to more than £500,000, according to Artlyst. More on the satellite fairs.

Own Art

UK residents can spread a purchase. Under Own Art, a publicly funded scheme, a buyer borrows from £250 to £25,000 through a participating gallery at 0% APR, repaying over 10 months up to £5,000 and over 20 months above it. The buyer must be over 18 and resident in the UK, the loan is subject to status, and missed payments bring late fees. It is not open to overseas visitors. Check the minimum with the gallery.

At Auction, Add the Premium

The hammer price is not the bill. Since February 13, Sotheby’s in London has charged a buyer’s premium of 28% up to £1.5 million, 22% from there to £6 million, and 15% above, as The Art Newspaper and the Antiques Trade Gazette reported. Christie’s has charged 27%, 22% and 15% since September 2025, and Phillips’s 2025 schedule starts at 29%, according to Grossman LLP. The sterling thresholds at Christie’s and Phillips could not be confirmed; read each house’s conditions of sale, for those and for VAT on the premium.

The Resale Right

When a work by a living artist, or one who died within the past 70 years, is resold for £1,000 or more through the trade, a royalty is due: 4% up to £50,000, falling in steps to 0.25% above £500,000, and capped at £12,500 a sale, by GOV.UK’s guidance. It does not apply to a first sale by the artist. Ask who bears it.

Taking It Home

Art brought into the UK carries import VAT at an effective 5%, according to HMRC. Visitors have had no VAT refund on goods carried out since January 1, 2021, though the government’s note allows retailers to sell VAT-free when they ship directly overseas. A buyer taking a work abroad should ask the gallery to ship it. How VAT applies to a sale inside the UK was not researched for this page; ask.

See Them Before They Have Dealers

The degree shows are free and run from late May to mid-July. In 2026 the Slade, the Royal Academy Schools, Camberwell, Chelsea, Central Saint Martins, Goldsmiths, the Royal College of Art, City & Guilds, Wimbledon and Kingston all opened theirs in that window, by Artlyst’s list.

Questions to Ask a Gallery

• Is the price framed, and does it include VAT and delivery?
• For an edition: what is the edition size, and how many artist’s proofs exist?
• Is the gallery an Own Art member?
• What paperwork comes with the work: an invoice, a certificate, a condition report?
• Can it be shipped abroad, and what will that cost?

London sold books before it sold pictures. The five-act cultural history is on the London page; this is the trade’s version.

The economics of the week are on the Host City page; the October auctions are with the fairs.