The centre of the European market for photography has traditionally been Paris, thanks in part to longstanding support from the city’s institutions and, more recently, the dominance of Paris Photo as the leading photography fair this side of the Atlantic.
Now, Photo London, a new fair launched by the cultural consultancy Candlestar with support from the Luma Foundation, is aiming to fill this gap in the capital’s art market, with around 60 international and UK-based galleries, at Somerset House (21-24 May), where the word “photography” was first coined by John Herschel in 1839.
“London is a great cultural capital,” says Michael Benson, the director of Candlestar, “it’s crazy that it doesn’t have an event like this yet.” A well-balanced mix of participants, ranging from established galleries such as Bernheimer (Lucerne, Munich), Howard Greenberg Gallery (New York) and James Hyman Gallery (London), to younger and more contemporary outfits such as Edel Assanti (London) and Gazelli Art House (Baku, London), are expected to draw a diverse crowd of collectors.
The key attraction for buyers here is that a relatively small amount of money can unlock top quality photographic works. “It’s about value for money,” says the dealer and collector James Hyman, “because for the price of a not-so-good Renoir you could actually buy a full collection of top photographs. The challenge for the fair is to develop a strong local collector base, because London already has the audience, but the test is whether they buy.”
Institutional interest is also on the rise as a number of museums, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Britain and Tate Modern, are organising collateral events, talks and exhibitions during the fair. “London has not shown the same commitment [as Paris] to photography, but it’s catching up fast,” Benson says, largely thanks to a slew of successful institutional shows over the past few years.
James Hyman is using the event to launch a free online platform for Modern British photography, which features his own 3,000-strong collection of photographs. “Scholarship and education have always been very important to me,” Hyman says, “and growing interest from US museums really shows the importance of this work.”
In a bid to create a veritable London “photo week”, Phillips, Christie’s and Sotheby’s have coordinated their photography sales (21, 22 and 23 May, respectively) to match the fair. Simone Klein, the head of European photography at Sotheby’s, is “confident that there will be a huge synergy between the fair and the sales, similar to the buzz during Paris Photo week in November,” while Philippe Garner, the international head of photographs at Christie’s is hoping for “a critical mass” capable of attracting new buyers. “The fair has certainly energised and given a focus to the London photography community.”
