Masterpiece London 2014

Masterpiece London 2014, Royal Chelsea Hospital

Masterpiece London art, antique and design fair 2014 came to a close yesterday after it successfully concluded its fifth opening year.

Perusing with the rich and fabulous amongst Old Masters, medieval sculptures and modern canvases was an understatement. Tickets were £25 (my tickets were free, courtesy of the Courtauld), small ciabatta chicken rolls were £7 and cans of lemonade were £3 from the inside cafes. I wanted wine but my overdraft said no.
For some reason I thought that the artwork I would see at Masterpiece would be by artists I didn't know, either because they were particularly rare or because I was not as up to date as I thought with the art market. I thought I would leave sheepish and anxious, worrying about never getting a job because I didn't know enough about the art world. Panic over, I knew plenty!

Entrance to Masterpiece London

 All of those artists I have loved throughout my childhood, education and degree were there. It became quickly obvious that academia rules the art market to a large extent. I was able to look at beautifully coloured Chagalls without glass hindering their beauty, without the worry that some nutter might vandalise the work; the man that threw acid over Rembrandt's the Night Watch in the '90s automatically springs to mind. The art at Masterpiece were without ropes keeping you within two or three feet. Many guests wandered around with glasses of wine and champagne, pointing with one hand and sipping with the other. I could have touched the layers of acrylic, the wavy mountainous oil paint which dazzled the artificial lights and no-one would have questioned me because I could have been a buyer.

The guards outside the most expensive artwork and jewellery booths addressed me as 'Good morning madam', at first I looked over my shoulder to see who they were talking to. This felt like a different world to people I meet on the train, the hustle and bustle of commuters in the stations, always in a rush, it was different to the students I meet, even if they are at one of the top universities for History of Art in Europe. The people at Masterpiece had nowhere else to be, no worries, they could afford to be there on a Wednesday at midday without taking the day off work and without a limit on their credit cards.

Taxdermy Fox with Squid

I bumped into a lovely lady in the Crane Kalman Gallery unit trying to haggle for a Lowry for £500,000 cheaper…I’m not sure what the original price was but in the end she gave in and paid in full. A woman admiring a Picasso sketch of Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s second wife, stood behind us and commented on how beautiful the artificial woman looked. I did not see it as one of Picasso’s best, it lacked his usual flair like several of his later sketches, but she proceeded to purchase the drawing nonetheless. I bravely asked a woman in one of the sculpture units how much the 3^rd reduction of Rodin’s The Kiss was going for, she answered £580,000.

Perhaps a classist observation, but after Grayson Perry’s Channel 4 programme on class a year or two ago it seems topical. Unlike the middle classes, always in competition, almost aggressive in their social climbing, the people visiting Masterpiece London seemed satisfied. There was no competition because money was no object, these people had never been without comfort because they inherited it and honestly, they were the friendliest group of people.

Artists featured at Masterpiece included Chagall, Picasso, Matisse, Bacon, Bridget Riley, Peter Blake, Lowry, Graham Sutherland, Reynolds, Lely, Warhol, Dali and Degas. The list is endless! One of my favourite pieces was a lithograph by Degas Nude Woman Standing, Drying Herself (1891-2). Although quite usual in subject for Degas, he did a series of nudes bathing, this piece had a particular charm that not all of the painterly versions possess. It was incredibly beautiful in its simplicity. Alongside the art were several units of antiques, jewellery, woodwork, furniture, clocks, globes, sculpture (Egyptian, Roman, Greek, modern), taxidermy animals and a maserati. Walking into that enormous space filled with treasures must have been how people felt when they first wandered into the Great Exhibition in 1851. It was a fantastic day out and I couldn’t fault it.

Visit http://www.masterpiecefair.com/ for more information on the fair.