The new Aldeburgh Art Fair is organised by dealers Emma Judd (Cobbold & Judd), Anna Wakerley (Oriel Fine Art), Belinda Allen Agar (Middlemarch Fine Art) and Sally Patrick (Hayletts Gallery).
Dubbed Aldeburgh Art Fair, the event runs from June 22-27 and comprises just four dealers.
Running the event is Anna Wakerley, organiser of the Connect art fair in London. The event is pitched to celebrate East Anglian artists as well as those from across Britain.
For the first edition, there are four exhibitors, all women: Wakerley of Oriel Fine Art, Emma Judd of Cobbold & Judd Fine Art, Belinda Allan Agar of Middlemarch Fine Art and Sally Patrick of Hayletts Gallery.
“The idea is that we make it as a collective as we do with Connect so that if one person drops away after one edition, the place can easily be passed on to another.” Wakerlely said. “I’ve already had people getting in touch about it asking if there’s any more space.”
Lionel Bulmer’s On the Sands, which Oriel Fine Art offers at Aldeburgh Art Fair.
The idea was sparked when she met Tom Brent, designer of the Ballroom Arts complex in Aldeburgh, at the Modern British Art Fair last September. Located on the town’s high street, it offers two floors’ worth of exhibition space.
According to Wakerley the Suffolk coast is “often overshadowed by the more famous names from St Ives”. Even so, it was a gathering place for artists “from the remarkable Charles Rennie MacIntosh who decamped to Walberswick from Glasgow, to Margaret Mellis and Francis Davison. There is now renewed interest in the Benton End school of Cedric Morris, but also in the post-war teaching at Colchester, where studies were lead by John O’Connor, John Nash and Edward Bawden.”
Works at the fair are to be offered at prices ranging from £250-7000 and names will include Maggi Hambling, Margaret Mellis, Mary Fedden, Prunel la Clough and Wilhelmina Barns Graham alongside John Nash, Keith Vaughan, Edward Bawden and Terry Frost.
