Hamiltons Gallery, 13 Carlos Place, London W1K 2EU
www.hamiltonsgallery.com Instagram: @hamiltonsgallery
Hamiltons Gallery is unusual. Most obviously for specialising in the impressive presentation of photography – it is arguably the leading photo-only commercial gallery in London. But also for its signature smell of sweet tobacco scent, which extends to its often elaborately immersive art fair booths – and making Irving Penn’s 2012 show of cigarette photographs appropriately memorable. It is, I think, the only space so prominently scented, even though there are other galleries – Beers, Castor, Gasworks, Mimosa House come to mind – with names that might suit an olfactory dimension.
Hamiltons, founded in 1977, was taken over by Tim Jefferies and his then business partner in 1984, and Jefferies has owned it alone since 1999. The programme is a broad mix between classic and contemporary, with perhaps a preference for the spectacular rather than the conceptual. That might be spectacle in nature (such as Murray Fredericks’ images of fire in the Australian outback or Hiro’s fighting fish and fowl) or in the interface with fashion (Helmut Newton, Mario Testino, Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts). My favourites of the 15 represented artists are Daido Moriyama and the late Erwin Olaf. At the moment you can see eleven prints from Swiss-Italian photographer Guido Mocafico’s ‘Serpens’ series from 2003. He makes the most of the mythically and practically charged subject of snakes by bringing two or more of a species together in a black-bottomed Perspex box, and waiting for the moment when they entwine most effectively – the compellingly-patterned results suggest considerable patience!
London’s gallery scene is varied, from small artist-run spaces to major institutions and everything in between. Each week, art writer and curator Paul Carey-Kent gives a personal view of a space worth visiting.
