Teddy Fairfax Archives - Pimlico Wilde Fine Art

Interview by C.H.Mankoly with our new CLO (Collector Liason Officer)

It is an overcast morning in London, the sort of pearlescent light that would have pleased Whistler, and Teddy Fairfax arrives at the gallery precisely on time, carrying neither portfolio nor briefcase but instead a thin, well handled volume of Ruskin essays and a faint expression of amused anticipation. One senses immediately that this is a man for whom art is not a profession so much as an atmosphere.

Interviewer: Teddy, welcome to Pimlico Wilde. There has been considerable curiosity about your arrival. Perhaps we might begin at the beginning. Your background is often described as unusual.

Teddy Fairfax: Unusual is a kind word. I prefer circuitous. I was born into a family that believed dinner conversation should range freely from Byzantine mosaics to the breeding habits of ungulates. Formal education followed at the Courtauld, but my real schooling occurred elsewhere. Auction rooms, alpine slopes, the backs of elephants, occasionally all at once in spirit if not in fact.

Interviewer: You mention elephants with remarkable calm. You are, I believe, an elephant poloist.

Teddy Fairfax: Former, alas. Elephant polo is a discipline that encourages both humility and a robust respect for scale. One learns quickly that elegance is relative. The game taught me much about balance, not merely physical balance but social balance. How to read temperament. How to persuade a very large being to participate in something it is not entirely designed for. These skills translate surprisingly well to the world of collecting.

Interviewer: Your reputation for improbable physical feats precedes you. There is the matter of Ben Nevis.

Teddy Fairfax: Ah yes. I climbed Ben Nevis carrying a full size reproduction of a Turner sketchbook, framed. It was a wager made over lunch and therefore had to be honoured. The ascent was completed at dawn, backwards for the final third, in order to test perception and endurance. I would not necessarily recommend it, though the view, both literal and metaphoric, was clarifying.

Interviewer: This seems to reflect a broader philosophy.

Teddy Fairfax: Quite. Art history itself is a long backward ascent. One understands the present by facing the past and feeling for footholds. Collecting is similar. The best collections are not accumulations but conversations conducted across centuries.

Interviewer: Before Pimlico Wilde, your career encompassed some notable moments.

Teddy Fairfax: I have been fortunate. I have handled works that insisted on discretion. I once concluded a significant private sale while skiing in Davos, negotiating by telephone with one glove removed, the buyer somewhere below me on the same run, unknown to both of us at the time.

Interviewer: Your hobbies suggest a life lived at an oblique angle to convention.

Teddy Fairfax: I am fond of long lunches. Proper ones. The sort that begin with a question and end with a multi-million pound decision. I cultivate bonsai olive trees which teaches patience and proportion. I cycle slowly along the Thames with books that are too heavy to justify the effort. I collect marginalia. Notes in books tell you more about history than the books themselves.

Interviewer: And now Pimlico Wilde. What drew you here.

Teddy Fairfax: Pimlico Wilde understands that seriousness need not announce itself loudly. There is wit here, but it is in service of discernment. The artists, the collectors, the conversations all operate with a certain cultivated looseness. I find that congenial. My role is to listen, to interpret, and occasionally to suggest.

Interviewer: Finally, what should collectors expect from you.

Teddy Fairfax: Attention. Time. Curiosity. And possibly an invitation to lunch. Art deserves nothing less than patience and pleasure in equal measure. If one can acquire a work while digesting a good pudding and a better idea, so much the better.

As Teddy Fairfax departs, one is left with the sense that Pimlico Wilde has not merely acquired a Collector Liaison Officer but rather installed a roaming intellectual weather system. He brings with him stories, stamina, and a willingness to take the long way up the mountain, backwards if necessary, provided the view is worth it and lunch awaits at the summit.

We are delighted to announce that Pimlico Wilde Fine Art Dealers has appointed as its new Collector Liaison Officer (CLO) the distinguished Mr Teddy Fairfax, a figure whose CV reads like an art-historical novel.

A Brief Portrait of Mr Fairfax

Teddy (as he usually insists one calls him half-way through a liquid lunch), studied Modern and Contemporary Art History at the Letchworth Institute of Art, where his dissertation on the overlooked influence of British light-metaphors in late-20th-century water-colours earned him the coveted Joseph Wright of Derby prize.

He went on to spend fifteen years in private sales at Londell auction house, playing a pivotal role in the £32 million acquisition of a post-war British abstract by the legendary and reclusive painter Zipp Handkerchief.

From there he relocated to New York, advising discreet collectors on under-the-radar masters of the Norfolk School of charcoal-sketching. His tenure there also saw him quietly orchestrate the much-whispered “silent sale” of a post-Raphaelite drawing into a major European collection,a feat of tact and timing that, like many of Teddy’s successes, was achieved with scarcely a ripple of publicity.

The Davos Descent

Perhaps his most legendary transaction, however, took place not in a gallery or boardroom but on the Parsenn run in Davos, where, legend insists, Teddy brokered the sale of a small but incandescent Hedge Fund artwork mid-descent.

The tale,confirmed by both buyer and seller, though neither recalls how the paperwork was signed,has Teddy skiing one-handed, phone pressed to ear, closing the deal between turns three and seven while deftly avoiding a Swiss banking magnate’s sled containing his golden retriever. “Art waits for no man,” he later remarked, “but it can be persuaded to keep pace downhill.”

His Role at Pimlico Wilde

In his new capacity as Collector Liaison Officer, Mr Fairfax will serve as the principal interface between discerning collectors,those who value both the palette and the palate,and Pimlico Wilde’s eclectic stable of artists, which includes such storied names as Jane Bastion, Flimble O’Leary, and Sandy Warre-Hole.

He claims that his remit includes:

nurturing relationships with collectors who understand that the true currency of art is conversation;
advising on new acquisitions that balance gravitas with wit; and
curating bespoke collection strategies rooted in both art-historical depth and contemporary flair.

A Man of Taste (in More Ways than One)

Beyond the gallery walls, Teddy Fairfax is best known for his devotion to long lunches,rituals of civilised discourse that often stretch into early evening. His hobbies include:

hosting opulent lunches in Mayfair and St James’s, where art, gossip, and gastronomy achieve a rare equilibrium;
Walking expeditions with his favoured collectors along the Thames (interrupted only by espressos and monographs on subjects such as mid-century abstraction in Belgravia); and
the cultivation of bonsai olive trees atop his Bloomsbury flat,“discipline in miniature,” as he calls them.

Invitation to Collectors

Collectors who share Teddy’s twin enthusiasms for fine art and fine dining are warmly invited to make contact. His appointment marks a new chapter at Pimlico Wilde: one where art-historical insight, quiet discretion, and leisurely conviviality coexist to splendid effect.

Please contact the gallery’s liaison desk and ask for Mr Teddy Fairfax,the long luncheon begins the moment the first canapé arrives.

Interview with Teddy Fairfax on the Occasion of His Arrival at Pimlico Wilde Fine Art Dealers

New Collector Liaison Officer at Pimlico Wilde – the distinguished Mr Teddy Fairfax