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TheVictoria Miro Gallery is a British contemporary art gallery inLondon, run byVictoria Miro[1] and (since 1997) her business partner Glenn Scott-Wright.[2] Miro opened her first gallery in 1985 inCork Street, before moving to larger premises inIslington in 2000[1] and later opening a second space in St George Street,Mayfair.
Once her children started school,[3]Victoria Miro opened her first gallery inCork Street, Mayfair, in 1985, where she became one of the principal dealers,[4][5] although the premises at 750 square feet (70 m2) were little larger than a studio apartment.[6] In the late 1980s, she opened a second gallery inFlorence, Italy, but shut it in 1991 after the art market slump.[6]
Long waiting lists of collectors and museums developed to buy work from the galleries, and Miro reported that evenCharles Saatchi, when he bought aCecily Brown painting from her, "seemed pleased to get one".[6]
In November 2000, the gallery moved to its present location in 16 Wharf Road,Islington, adjacent to the cutting-edge art area ofHoxton,[1] where it is housed in a two-floor, 10,000-square-foot (930 m2), convertedVictorian furniture factory, ten times the size of the Cork Street gallery.[1] Miro's co-director, Glenn Scott Wright, attributed the move to the "buzz" in the area, whereJay Jopling'sWhite Cube gallery had also moved, and saw other galleries following suit, since rents in theWest End of London were quadrupling.[1] She was described byChristie's curator, Gerard Goodrow, as "a leading figure in making the East End the center of contemporary art in London."[6]
A group show prior to the conversion of the building brought 4,000 visitors, which it would have taken the Cork Street gallery six months to attract.[1] The conversion architect, Trevor Horne retained some of the original features of the building, such as the worn staircase and rough roof beams, while the waste ground at the rear next toRegent's Canal was left to artistIan Hamilton Finlay to regenerate.[1] The opening show byThomas Demand was of paper and card reconstructions of photographs of interiors.[1]
The gallery's yearly turnover is in the tens of millions of pounds.[7]
The Upper Room byChris Ofili was exhibited at the Wharf Road space in 2002: it consists of 13 paintings, each of arhesus macaque monkey, installed in a purpose-built room designed byDavid Adjaye.[8]Adrian Searle, art critic ofThe Guardian, wrote that it was a work theTate had to buy.[8] In July 2005, the Tate announced the purchase of the work as the centrepiece of a new hang atTate Britain.[8]
In 2022, art historian and authorKaty Hessel celebrated the publication of her best-selling bookThe Story of Art Without Men with an exhibition that she curated at the Wharf Road space of 16 works by women artists, includingJadé Fadojutimi andFlora Yukhnovich.[9]
In 2013, Victoria Miro Gallery opened a second space in a converted bank office in St George Street,Mayfair,[3] designed byClaudio Silvestrin and executed by project architect Michael Drain.[10] Its lease ended in 2020.[11]
In 2017, Victoria Miro Gallery opened an exhibition space in the former Galleria il Capricorno in a 17th-century building in theSan Marco neighbourhood ofVenice.[12]
In September 2002, the gallery was one of the 18 cutting-edge art galleries with international reputations to be selected forThe Galleries Show at theRoyal Academy, an exhibition curated byNorman Rosenthal and Max Wigram to highlight the role played by galleries in an artist's creative progress, as well as putting work on sale and realigning the Academy with a greater involvement in current art.[13]
The gallery was one of the 118 galleries worldwide to be selected for the firstFrieze Art Fair in London in October 2003, alongside other leading British galleries,White Cube andGagosian.[14]
In March 2004, at New York'sArmory Show, the gallery sold everything on the opening day; this included work by a new artist to the gallery and recent graduate,Raqib Shaw, whose first solo show in London of 18 drawings and five paintings, stemming from the work ofHieronymous Bosch and priced up to $20,000, had previously sold out.[15]
In December 2004, atArt Basel Miami Beach, the gallery sold out a room of paintings bySuling Wang, who had not at that time had a solo show. The room was re-hung and sold out again.[16]
Victoria Miro represents numerous living artists, including:
In addition, the gallery manages various artist estates, including:
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51°31′49.3″N0°5′42″W / 51.530361°N 0.09500°W /51.530361; -0.09500
