The New York Times - T Magazine / 25th Jun 2014
Sandwiched between Royal Ascot and the Henley Royal Regatta, the fifth edition ofMasterpiece London, the annual fine art and antiques fair, opens its doors tomorrow. For one week, everything from 19th-century Italian paintings to a 2013 Italian Maserati will be up for sale on the South Grounds of the historic Royal Hospital Chelsea.“The London Season has made its return,” says the event’s chairman, Philip Hewat-Jaboor, “and I see Masterpiece very much as the glue that cements the astonishing array of activities in these summer months.”
Most visitors will buy a general admission ticket (25 pounds) to get a closer glimpse of 18th-century china or antique jewelry. Others, like the British model and actress Elizabeth Hurley, have plans to do more than window-shop. “I’m really looking forward to Masterpiece Fair this year as I’ve just bought a new house in the country and am looking for pieces,” she says. Others, still, have become regulars. “I’ve been to all the Masterpiece Fairs since they started,” says Sir Paul Smith. “To select a few favorites from what is going to be exhibited is incredibly difficult because they’re all very good pieces.” But that’s just what T asked the English fashion designer to do: pick his favorite pieces from this year’s show. In the above slideshow, he and Hurley join Hewat-Jaboor and Martin Roth (director of the Victoria and Albert Museum) in offering a peek at Masterpiece London 2014’s finest.
Masterpiece London 2014 is on view June 26 through July 2, masterpiecefair.com.
“Beautiful Realities” by René Magritte, 1962. Philip Hewat-Jaboor: “The classical sphere takes the form of an apple, apples featuring strongly in Magritte’s surrealist works; with its mysterious connotations of the Fall of Man, it is surmounted by a cloth-covered table of diminutive scale. The strength and simplicity of this provoking image echoes the mystery and classicism of the Mithraic relief.”