There is a wall inside the entrance to Paul Smith in Mayfair, currently painted a soft blush, that has come to represent the creative vitality and resilient joy of London’s contemporary art scene. My first encounter with this space revealed a painting resonant with the spiritual awakenings of Hilma af Klint and the transcendent hues of Mark Rothko – a moving work by Kazakh-born artist Aigana Gali. Next time, I found a monumental golden oak; a masterful lens-based, laser-cut work on paper, set with etymology pins on a ground of silk and framed in four immaculate sections by the artist Emma Levine. Now commanding the wall are two large-scale paintings by Sue Williams A’Court, whose versatility spans collage, gesso, graphite powder, and electric erasers. Her work, A Great Wagon, recently shown in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, bridges art history and abstraction, featuring a Gainsborough painting floating above a Constable landscape, underscored by a vibrant lozenge of bubble-gum pink.
Contemporary but whimsical, modern yet nostalgic, something about these paintings speaks to the vision of London’s greatest living designer, Sir Paul Smith. Endlessly innovating, updating and exporting cool Britannia – in the form of well-cut suits lined with neon silk and contrast piping – Smith’s flagship store in the heart of Mayfair cannot be described as a shop. More like an emporium, this constantly evolving space, that now boasts a gallery downstairs, reflects his curiosity, flair and tireless commitment to the arts. No. 9 Albemarle Street is perhaps most known for its magnificent bespoke cast iron façade, which includes subtle hand-drawn details by Smith, which was designed with the help of 6A architects, or the Domino Room, which he created in a mosaic of 26,000 dominoes. Inside the walls, above every cast-iron rail of immaculately colour-coordinated clothes, are filled works of art from artists across the capital and beyond, from David Remfry to Marie-Elisabeth Merlin. Shelves lined with ceramics by Kate Malone and Phil Goss coexist with objects d’art by Emma Witter and Orlando Seale, alongside Smith’s own commissioned assemblages, such as a bell-jar-enclosed antique clock.
For decades, Smith has championed the arts: a 30-year scholarship with the Royal Academy Schools; an art collection that includes blue-chip names like Lynette Yiadom-Boake and Banksy alongside works from early-career artists exhibited across his stores worldwide (including airports!). In 2023, he established the Paul Smith Foundation and International Art Prize with Winsor & Newton in recognition of the stark need for peer-to-peer support for early-career artists, as well as the chance to develop their international networks, with Martha Mosse as director. Accessible to artists of all abilities and aimed at those within the first ten years of their career, the free-to-enter Open Call presented its inaugural edition last year, announcing six winning artists from around the world, selected by a notable, local industry representative. In year two, six new artists have been chosen in London by Mark Rappolt of ArtReview, Salma Tuqan of Nottingham Contemporary, Marie Laurberg of Copenhagen Contemporary, Stijn Maes, Director of Masereel Antwerp, Larry Ossei-Mensah in New York, and X Zhu Nowell of Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai.
Further, in 2024, he opened the Paul Smith Art space inside his Mayfair store, with Katie Heller at its helm, bringing his quirky mix of new and old, established and emerging, to Mayfair with group and solo shows. The current group exhibition, P.O.V – Defining Your Point of View, brings all these elements together: past exhibitors from Paul Smith’s artistic program alongside the winners of this year’s art prize, Laura Basterra Sanz (Antwerp), Cecilia Lamptey-Botchway (New York), Charlotte Winifred Guérard (London), Michelle Heron (Nottingham), Zhongwen Hu (Shanghai), and Silke WeiBbach (Copenhagen). In many ways, it is the visual representation of how to build a community that holds space for the unique perspectives of each individual, whilst giving them a sense of place. The artists shown (too many to list) work across a vast array of mediums and offer us a multitude of personal narratives; it might be busy, but it is simply joyous and welcoming. A tonic to the white wall austerity of high-end spaces that feel totally inaccessible.
Let us return to the walls and follow a line of soft-toned paintings (in acrylic that might be watercolour) by Bobbye Fermie to an abstract work in raw canvas by Lawrence Watchorn. Totally different yet tonally in sync, throughout the show, we find surprising connections between things in a way that reflects our entangled lives. Inside a work on the wall that once held an iconic book painting by Nancy Cadogan, is a gentle work in soft spring tones by Katy Papineau, ‘Swiftly Tread’, and beyond we find little figurative works of wonder by Davina Jackson in complement to the lucent, glossy scenes in Iona Szalay’s oil paintings on wood. Perhaps the wall that holds the most power is opposite the front entrance, previously showing Colm Macathlaoich and Gabriele Beveridge. This time, the showstopper is “Mougins”, a painting by Fred Coppin. In it, a blonde woman dressed in what looks like a Paul Smith lounge suit, replete with his signature stripes, leans easily against the balustrade of a swimming pool. We are somewhere hot, somewhere Matisse would have painted, and we want to get in there, be there with Paul Smith, living life to its chromatic fullness.
P.O.V. – Defining Your Point of View – Winsor & Newton X Paul Smith’s Foundation International Art Prize 2025 Until 12 January 2026, Paul Smith Space, 9 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BL
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