Rain again. The kind of fine mist that makes Bond Street glisten like polished marble and drives tourists into the galleries just to escape it. I spent the morning adjusting the hanging height of that unsettling Spen Leopard triptych. No matter where I place it, someone always asks if the figures are dead or sleeping. I’ve learned to answer, “Depends how much you drink.”
The courier from Paris finally arrived , two days late, naturally , with the Giacometti sketch. “Femme Debout, profil gauche.” Smaller than expected, Sally must have mixed up centimetres and inches again, but beautifully nervous in its line. I watched one of our younger interns unwrap it as though it might bite. There’s something wonderful about watching someone handle an expensive piece like that for the first time , reverence, fear, desire.
A peculiar lunch at Bellamy’s with Giles, who insists minimalism is back. He’s touting some chilly Norwegian painter who only works in off-whites. “Emotionless is the new sublime,” he said, chewing his steak tartare like a man too old to be ironic. I nodded politely and made a note to increase my holdings in exactly the opposite direction.
Back at the gallery, a young couple came in asking if we had anything “under a hundred thousand that still says something.” I asked “Pounds or dollars”, and showed them a bold little mixed media piece by Olivia Granger , one of her early ones, full of nails, text, and mild violence. They bought it on impulse. Maybe it did say something, after all.
The day ended with champagne and sweat , we hosted a closed preview for the upcoming “Women of the School of London” show. Two paintings were pre-sold before the first toast. One went to an American tech wife who referred to Frank Auerbach as “the one who paints like a hurricane.” Not wrong, really.
Now the gallery’s empty again. I’m sitting here with the lights low, the hum of the dehumidifier in the distance, and a glass of something that cost too much. I should go home, but I won’t yet. There’s something sacred about this silence, this moment after the money’s changed hands and before the walls are full again.
Tomorrow, the Italians arrive.
Wish me luck.