Art Cheshire opens at The Mere Golf Resort and Spa near Knutsford from September 21-23, with 28 exhibitors from the UK and Ireland offering 20th century and Contemporary art.
It's an affordable range of commercially appealing artwork in a wealthy area that, although not short of antiques fairs, has little in the way of specialist art fairs.
But the North West is certainly not lacking in artists, with the market for northern art booming in recent years, and a number of the galleries will bring work by local names. Cheshire-based Jo Bennett Originals specialises in north western artists and will bring works by John Thompson (1924-2011), Manchester artist Geoffrey Key (b.1946) and the Czech-born Jiri Borsky (b.1945), who is now based in The Potteries.
Although London gallery Eleven and a Half specialise in work by Cornish artists such as John Piper (b.1946), Terry Whybrow (b.1932) and Michael Praed (b.1941), they will also bring pieces by Macclesfield-born Simon Pooley, while Wilmslow artist Andrew Hood (b.1964) has paintings on the stand of First Contemporary and Cheshire-based Anita Henderson is represented by the Enid Lawson Gallery.
Other exhibitors include Wren Gallery from Burford; Bristol's Alexander Gallery; Edge Fine Art of Shropshire with 20th century work by William Gear (1915-97), Robert Adams (1917-84) and Keith Vaughan (1912-77); Number Nine The Gallery from Birmingham and Sol Art Gallery from Dublin with Irish artists including fashion designer Paul Costelloe (b.1945).
Manchester Scene
A more established art fair in this neck of the woods is The Manchester Contemporary, now in its fourth year and running from September 28-30 (preview September 27) in Quay House in the Spinningfields development, a sort of Canary Wharf for Manchester.
It is organised by Buy Art Fair Limited and runs alongside the Buy Art Fair, a larger, more mainstream event with around 50 exhibitors and a wider range of art, which also takes place in Spinningfields over the same dates.
The idea behind Manchester Contemporary is that it is an affordable, curated event with a smaller selection of galleries and a steering committee made up of The Manchester Art Gallery, Contemporary Art Society and The International 3, who curate the fair.
With prices starting at around £50, the event hopes to foster new collectors of Contemporary art outside London and is complemented by a series of events and talks by curators and artists that run alongside the fair - this year there are 13 invited exhibitors and nine smaller project spaces.
The new exhibitors this year include Rotterdam curator/gallerist Anne-Marie Ros Projects, who brings work by Dutch and American artists like Jeroen Bodewits (b.1971), Mirjam Somers (b.1971), John Curran (b.1970) and Anna Tanner (b.1979).
Also new are London galleries Rob Tufnell, Rokeby and Rod Barton, and the Manchester-based Untitled Gallery.
Regular exhibitors include Man & Eve and Ceri Hand from London, Gateshead's Workplace Gallery and Bureau from Manchester.
