At a time when many London galleries are shutting their doors, Bowman Sculpture has chosen to expand. The Mayfair gallery has unveiled a £200,000 refurbishment of its long-standing Duke Street premises, reopening just in time for Frieze Week with a solo exhibition of new work by Italian sculptor Massimiliano Pelletti.
The relaunch signals an act of confidence in the physical gallery’s role. Where others have contracted or disappeared altogether, Bowman Sculpture has doubled down on the importance of scale, presence and direct encounter — qualities that sculpture, more than any other medium, demands.
The project has been driven by gallery director Mica Bowman, who took over the leadership of the family business to reshape its identity for a new generation. Rather than outsourcing the design, she worked hands-on with the builders to reconfigure the space, relocating offices to the lower ground floor, clearing the main level to create a single, open exhibition room, and introducing a stripped-back palette of polished concrete, stone, and neutral tones. The effect is a clean, contemporary setting where material and form can breathe.
The first exhibition to occupy this space is Metamorfosi, a solo presentation by Pelletti (b.1975), whose practice reworks classical statuary using contemporary stone and composite materials. His figures and busts evoke the fragments of antiquity yet are punctured, inlaid, or interrupted by unexpected surfaces. A rising figure in European sculpture, Pelletti has exhibited at the Venice Biennale and, in 2024, became the youngest artist to hold a solo exhibition at Rome’s Museo Nazionale Romano–Palazzo Massimo. His relationship with Bowman Sculpture began in 2023 with a sold-out debut.
Opening with Pelletti is a telling choice. His practice, grounded in classical form yet unmistakably contemporary, sets the tone for Mica Bowman’s direction. The programme is shaping up to place emerging sculptors such as Joanna Allen in conversation with historic figures, pushing dialogue across generations rather than reinforcing hierarchies. The refurbished gallery underlines this ethos.
Bowman has been clear that she wants to break from the closed-door atmosphere of Mayfair’s more traditional dealers, favouring something closer to a public forum: accessible, open, and centred squarely on the sculpture. Programming has expanded accordingly, with talks, performances and late-night gatherings becoming a regular feature, drawing in audiences beyond the usual collector base.
It is a strategy that contrasts with the more closed, formal culture associated with St James’s dealers, even as Bowman Sculpture continues to handle major works by Rodin and Degas.
Following Metamorfosi (October 9– November 7), the gallery will extend its programme to Frieze Masters with Echoes in Form: Sculpture Across Time. The stand will juxtapose rare works by Degas with contemporary figures such as Emily Young, mapping over 150 years of sculptural practice in a single presentation.
In the face of contraction elsewhere, Bowman Sculpture’s renovation feels like both a bet and a statement. It asserts that sculpture must be experienced in real space, and that the gallery itself — not the screen — remains central to how art is perceived.
Frieze Masters in The Regent’s Park from 15th to 19th October, 2025.
Massimiliano Pelletti ‘Metamorfosi’ Bowman Sculpture 6 Duke Street St James’s London SW1Y 6BN 9th October until 7th November, 2025.