Wartski
60 St James’s Street, London SW1A 1LZ
Jewellery dealer Wartski is swapping Mayfair for St James’s and will move south to 60 St James’s Street in London by the end of the summer.
The new shop has been designed with Tom Bartlett of architecture and interior design firm Waldo Works, which has worked with retailers including Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason in the past.
Wartski, founded by Morris Wartski in Bangor, north Wales, in 1865, has been in Grafton Street in Mayfair since 1974. The firm first opened in London in 1911.
Maddox Gallery
Promenade 7, 3780 Gstaad, Switzerland
Contemporary art dealership Maddox Gallery has opened a new premises in Gstaad, Switzerland, the first international location for the business and the fourth of its spaces to open since 2015.
The new premises of Maddox Gallery in Gstaad, Switzerland.
The new gallery is housed in a traditional chalet in the Alpine resort and launched with an exhibition of the photographs of David Yarrow. The refurbishment of the three-floor space was overseen by Chaletbau Matti and opened late last year. It is managed by Michael Doerr.
The gallery has three other locations, all in London: Maddox Street, Westbourne Grove and Shepherd Street.
Drew Pritchard
9-11 High Street, Conwy LL32 8DE
This month Drew Pritchard opens a new shop in his local Conwy, a walled market town on the north coast of Wales.
The premises is a double-fronted Art Deco shop spanning two floors and measuring about 2000sq feet transformed, in the words of the dealer, into a “boutique, curated shop”.
Currently Pritchard’s sole retail space, it has been stripped back and completely redecorated over the course of several months.
“I wanted to build the perfect antiques shop that I would want to go to,” he says. “The retail antiques business is good. People want to go out and shop again.”
Known in part for his appearances on Discovery Channel’s Salvage Hunters, he is using the opening of the space as a chance to return to a more traditional way of dealing, spending the week on the road sourcing stock (while the shop is manned by his team of around six) before revealing it at the shop on Saturdays. “It’s an old-school way of running a shop but I’m not the first to do it this way and hopefully I won’t be the last,” Pritchard says.
Gallery 8
2602 Frederick Douglass Blvd, NY 10030, USA
Gallery 8 has expanded to New York after 10 years on London’s Duke Street. The second location in Harlem’s Strivers’ Row district is a 19th century building with a corner space.
It offers a chance for owner Celine Gauld to return to curating as well as repurposing the successful London model of a gallery for rent. “I was keen to expand in London but properties are now so expensive that New York has become an interesting option,” Gauld says.
The new Gallery 8 space that has opened in New York.
“I believe the New York market is very welcoming and open. Our two locations are very different: St James’s is very traditional and conservative, Harlem is edgier.”
Gauld opened the London space as a rental venue for temporary exhibitions in 2008 and it has been used by dealers including Gray MCA, Jenna Burlingham, Fondantico di Tiziana Sassoli and Finch & Co.
The new space launches with the exhibition All That You Have is Your Soul by FACTION Art Projects, on February 2.
