LONDON.- This Summer’s edition of the bi-annual London Art Week came to a close on Friday 5 July with participants in an upbeat mood, and having reported extremely good attendance from leading international institutions and UK national and regional museums.

Amelia Higgins, Director, commented on the “hugely positive response dealers have had to their gallery exhibitions, some of which were ground-breaking and many years in the making. Once again, the scholarly attributes of London Art Week presentations have proved impressive, drawing international academics as well as private and institutional buyers. We’re delighted at how successful it has been. We’ve also had our most popular events programme to date, which embraced topics such as the ‘Old Masters Art Market’ and ‘Old Masters in the Digital Age’.”

There were a record number of galleries taking part in LAW Summer 2019, which ran from 27 June to 5 July: 13 were new, 13 came from overseas and 34 were from the UK. Combined with the three major auction houses there were 50 participants in total, with art spanning 5,000 years, from antiquity to the present day. Dealers commented on increased footfall, with plenty of museum and institution attendees, and good new private buyers, many of whom bought during London Art Week. There has been strong interest from museums, which can take some time to confirm and finalise potential purchases.

Representatives from international institutions visiting the galleries included J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York ; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Städel Museum, Frankfurt; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; Wadsworth Atheneum, Connecticut; Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, and the Currier Museum of Art, New Hampshire.

There was a good showing from the UK: British Museum; Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery; National Museum Cardiff; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, National Gallery; Victoria & Albert Museum, London and The Museum of London.

Dates for London Art Week Winter 2019 are Sunday 1 to Friday 6 December, during which an important new event will be inaugurated, the London Art Week Symposium on Monday 2 December. The Symposium will provide a new platform for debate and in 2019 will explore some of the ethical issues in the art world. The programme will be announced in September.