Victoria Miro Gallery, Islington (geograph 3774506)

The Victoria Miro Gallery is a British contemporary art gallery in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, run by

Victoria Miro Victoria Marion Miro (born 1 July 1945) is a British art dealer, "one of the grandes dames of the Britart scene"Husband, Stuart"Go see... the Victoria Miro gallery" ''The Observer'', 3 December 2000. Retrieved 27 September 2013. and founder of th ...

.Husband, Stuart
"Go see... the Victoria Miro gallery
''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'', 3 December 2000. Retrieved 22 April 2008. Miro opened her first gallery in 1985 in

Cork Street Cork Street is a street in Mayfair in the West End of London, England, with many contemporary art galleries, and was previously associated with the tailoring industry. It is part of the Burlington Estate, which was developed from the 18th centu ...

, before moving to larger premises in

Islington Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ...

in 2000 and later opening a second space in St George Street,

Mayfair Mayfair is an affluent area in the West End of London towards the eastern edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster, between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It is one of the most expensive districts in the world ...

Locations

Cork Street

opened her first gallery in

, Mayfair, in 1985, where she became one of the principal dealers,"Gilbert & George—true pioneers of East End art
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

, 31 May 2004, page 2 of 3. Retrieved 22 April 2008. although the premises at were little larger than a studio apartment.Peterson, Thane
"Looking for Tomorrow's Artists? Follow Victoria Miro "

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

, 21 February 2001. Retrieved 22 April 2008. In the late 1980s, she opened a second gallery in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

in Italy, but shut it in 1991 after the art market slump. Long waiting lists of collectors and museums developed to buy work from the galleries, and Miro reported that even

Charles Saatchi Charles Saatchi (; ar, تشارلز ساعتجي; born 9 June 1943) is an Iraqi-British businessman and the co-founder, with his brother Maurice, of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The brothers led the business – the world's largest ...

, when he bought a

Cecily Brown Cecily Brown (born 1969) is a British painter. Her style displays the influence of a variety of contemporary painters, from Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon (artist), Francis BaconScott, Sue (2013). "Cecily Brown" in ''The Reckoning: Women Artis ...

painting from her, "seemed pleased to get one."

Wharf Road

In November 2000, the gallery moved to its present location in 16 Wharf Road,

, adjacent to the cutting-edge art area of

Hoxton Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, England. As a part of Shoreditch, it is often considered to be part of the East End – the historic core of wider East London. It was historically in the county of Middlesex until 1889. It l ...

, where it is housed in a two floor, , converted Victorian furniture factory, ten times the size of the Cork Street gallery. Miro's co-director, Glenn Scott Wright, attributed the move to the "buzz" in the area, where Jay Jopling's

White Cube White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Centr ...

gallery had also moved, and saw other galleries following suit, since rents in the

West End of London The West End of London (commonly referred to as the West End) is a district of Central London, west of the City of London and north of the River Thames, in which many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government build ...

were quadrupling. She was described by

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémi ...

curator, Gerard Goodrow, as "a leading figure in making the East End the center of contemporary art in London." A group show prior to the conversion of the building brought 4,000 visitors, which it would have taken the Cork Street gallery six months to attract. The conversion architect, Trevor Horne retained some of the original features of the building, such as the worn staircase and rough roof beams, while the waste ground at the rear next to

Regent's Canal Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in e ...

was left to artist Ian Hamilton Finlay to regenerate. The opening show by Thomas Demand was of paper and card reconstructions of photographs of interiors. The gallery's yearly turnover is in the tens of millions of pounds. The gallery represents

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

winners, Chris Ofili and

Grayson Perry Grayson Perry (born 1960) is an English contemporary artist, writer and broadcaster. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "pre ...

; and former Turner Prize nominees

Peter Doig Peter Doig ( ; born 17 April 1959) is a Scottish painter. One of the most renowned living figurative painters, he has settled in Trinidad since 2002. In 2007, his painting ''White Canoe'' sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction r ...

(a former Tate trustee), Ian Hamilton Finlay, and Isaac Julien. Other artists, as of 2008, are

Doug Aitken Doug Aitken (born 1968) is an American artist. Aitken's body of work ranges from photography, print media, sculpture, and architectural interventions, to narrative films, sound, single and multi-channel video works, installations, and live perf ...

Hernan Bas Hernan Bas (born 1978 in Miami, Florida, United States) is an artist based in Miami, Florida. He graduated in 1996 from the New World School of the Arts in Miami. Bas is known for his depictions of waifs and dandies, who are somewhat based on h ...

, Varda Caivano, Verne Dawson,

Stan Douglas Stan Douglas (born October 11, 1960) is an artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Douglas' film and video installations, photography and work in television frequently touch on the history of literature, cinema and music, while examining ...

Elmgreen and Dragset Michael Elmgreen (born 1961; Copenhagen, Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (born 1969; Trondheim, Norway) have worked together as an artist duo since 1995. Their work explores the relationship between art, architecture and design. Elmgreen & Dragset li ...

, William Eggleston,

Inka Essenhigh Inka Essenhigh (born 1969) is an American painter based in New York City. Throughout her career, Essenhigh has had solo exhibitions at galleries such as Deitch Projects, Mary Boone Gallery, 303 Gallery, Stefan Stux Gallery, and Jacob Lewis Galle ...

Barnaby Furnas Barnaby Furnas, (born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1973), is an American painter and former graffiti artist who lives and works in New York City. He studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and received a BFA in 1995 before going on to s ...

, David Harrison, Alex Hartley,

NS Harsha NS as an abbreviation can mean: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Natural Selection'' (video game), a mod for the game ''Half-life'' * '' NetStorm: Islands At War'', a real-time strategy game published in 1997 by Activision * Nintendo Switch, a ...

, Christian Holstad,

Chantal Joffe Chantal Joffe (born 5 October 1969) is an American-born English artist based in London.Royal Academy of ArtsChantal Joffe RA Elect , Artist , Royal Academy of Arts accessdate: 29/08/2014 Her often large-scale paintings generally depict women ...

Idris Khan Idris Khan OBE (born 1978) is a British artist based in London.Biography
Victoria Miro Gallery Khan's ...

, Udomsak Krisanamis,

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attribute ...

John Korner John Kørner (born in 1967) is a Danish artist based in Copenhagen. Kørner was born in Aarhus, Denmark. His paintings feature a mixture of figurative and abstract imagery rendered in watered-down acrylic. Some common motifs are people, animals ...

, Tracey Moffatt, Wangechi Mutu,

Alice Neel Alice Neel (January 28, 1900 – October 13, 1984) was an American visual artist, who was known for her portraits depicting friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers. Her paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color, psyc ...

Jacco Olivier Jacco is a Dutch male given name. It is a form of Jacob or James, only popular since the mid-1960. The spelling Jakko is uncommon.Jacco ...

, Tal R, Conrad Shawcross,

Sarah Sze Sarah Sze (; born 1969) is an American artist widely recognized for challenging the boundaries of painting, installation, and architecture. Sze's sculptural practice ranges from slight gestures discovered in hidden spaces to expansive installat ...

, Adriana Varejão, Suling Wang,

Stephen Willats Stephen Willats (born 1943 in London) is a British artist. He lives and works in London. Stephen Willats is a pioneer of conceptual art. Since the early 1960s he has created work concerned with extending the territory in which art functions. H ...

, and Francesca Woodman."Victoria Miro: Artists"
Victoria Miro Gallery. Retrieved 29 April 2008. '' The Upper Room'' by Chris Ofili was exhibited at the Victoria Miro gallery in 2002: it consists of thirteen paintings, each of a

rhesus macaque The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally ...

monkey, installed in a purpose-built room designed by David Adjaye.Kennedy, Maev
"Tate buys Ofili's roomful of apostles"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'', 20 July 2005. Retrieved 22 April 2008.

Adrian Searle Adrian Searle (born 1953 in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire) is the chief art critic of ''The Guardian'' newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. Life and career Searle studied at the St ...

, art critic of ''

'', wrote that it was a work the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

had to buy. In July 2005, the Tate announced the purchase of the work as the centrepiece of a new hang at

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

St George Street

In 2013, Victoria Miro Gallery opened a second space in a converted bank office in St George Street,

, designed by

Claudio Silvestrin Claudio Silvestrin (b. Zurich, 5 September 1954) is an Italian architect and designer, and a British citizen. He studied under AG Fronzoni in Milan and at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. From 1986 to 1988, Silvestr ...

and executed by project architect Michael Drain.

San Marco

In 2017, Victoria Miro Gallery opened an exhibition space in the former Galleria il Capricorno in a 17th-century building in the San Marco neighbourhood of

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

External shows

In September 2002, the gallery was one of the eighteen cutting edge, art galleries with international reputations to be selected for ''The Galleries Show'' at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

, an exhibition curated by

Norman Rosenthal Sir Norman Rosenthal (born 8 November 1944) is a British independent curator and art historian. From 1970 to 1974 he was Exhibitions Officer at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. In 1974 he became a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts ...

and Max Wigram to highlight the role played by galleries in an artist's creative progress, as well as putting work on sale and realigning the Academy with a greater involvement in current art."Not the Summer Exhibition"
''

'', 6 April 2002. Retrieved 22 April 2008. The gallery was one of the 118 galleries worldwide to be selected for the first

Frieze Art Fair Frieze Art Fair is an international contemporary art fair in London, New York, and Los Angeles. Frieze London takes place every October in London's Regent's Park. In the US, the fair ran on New York's Randall's Island from 2012–19 and in ...

in London in October 2003, alongside other leading British galleries,

and

Gagosian Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...

."Market news: Howard Rutkowski and the Frieze Art Fair"
''

'', 14 April 2003. Retrieved 22 April 2008. In March 2004, at New York's

Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...

, the gallery sold everything on the opening day; this included work by a new artist to the gallery and recent graduate, Raqib Shaw, whose first solo show in London of eighteen drawings and five paintings, stemming from the work of

Hieronymous Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/ Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oa ...

and priced up to $20,000, had previously sold out. In December 2004, at

Art Basel Miami Beach Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help ...

, the gallery sold out a room of paintings by Suling Wang, who had not at that time had a solo show. The room was re-hung and sold out again.Gleadell, Colin
"Art sales: Miami hit by an art hurricane"
''

'', 13 December 2004. Retrieved 22 April 2008.

Notes and references

External links

* {{Coord , 51, 31, 49.3, N, 0, 5, 42, W, type:landmark_region:GB-ISL, display=title Event venues established in 1985 Art galleries established in 1985 1985 establishments in England Contemporary art galleries in London Contemporary art galleries in Italy