The galleries on Cork Street join forces for a group exhibition celebrating 100 years as a landmark art destination. A specially curated programme will honour its rich legacy as the historic and enduring home of modern and contemporary art in London.
In tribute to the centennial year, a first-of-its-kind initiative, a group exhibition entitled Fear Gives Wings To Courage will be staged across all 15 galleries on Cork Street, with each gallery presenting a response to a central theme conceived by Tarini Malik, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Fear Gives Wings to Courage has been commissioned in three parts as a response to the curatorial theme conceived by Malik. This is comprised of Fear Gives Wings to Courage Part I; a new edition of the Cork Street Galleries Banners Commission forming an outdoor element of the exhibition on view until the end of 2025; Fear Gives Wings to Courage Part II; a presentation of works within each participating gallery space, on view from 11th to 25th July 2025; and Fear Gives Wings to Courage Part III; CATALOGUE Issue 8:0, guest-edited by Malik, which will launch later this year to coincide with Frieze London 2025.
Taking its title from Jean Cocteau’s seminal 1938 work La peur donnant des ailes au courage (Fear Giving Wings to Courage), the exhibition celebrates 100 years of Cork Street and the transformative potential of artists’ voices both within gallery spaces and outside of them. Gesturing to the street’s long-established cultural history, the exhibition’s theme recalls Cork Street’s pioneering role in transforming London into a hub for international art practices in the twentieth century, while also making it one of the key platforms in Europe for the expansion of Surrealist and Dadaist movements.
Peggy Guggenheim established her gallery space, ‘Guggenheim Jeune’, in 1938. While hosting her first show with the famed polymath Jean Cocteau, the gallery stirred up significant controversy due to his painting La peur donnant des ailes au courage (Fear Giving Wings to Courage), which was confiscated by British customs authorities upon arrival in the United Kingdom. Similarly, this exhibition nods to the necessity of the gallery ecosystem in encouraging, upholding and presenting artists’ practices that are assertions of agency in the face of societal and political pressures. The galleries on Cork Street were asked to respond to the theme with artists’ work that can be thought of as emblematic of Cocteau’s unabashed vigour and Guggenheim’s abiding belief in supporting artists. The galleries were also encouraged to profile artists who continue to draw from the legacies of Surrealism, not as a mere style or movement within the Western canon, but rather as a state of mind; a fluid, boundless approach of navigating notions of the self and society that transgress borders and temporalities.
“It is a huge honour for The Pollen Estate, as the 400 year old custodian of this part of Mayfair, to celebrate a century of artistic endeavour with Cork Street Galleries. The 15 galleries have come together to collaborate in a first-of-its-kind exhibition that honours the legacy of those who paved the way whilst championing the artists who continue to pioneer. This longevity is unrivalled in London and Cork Street Galleries, an initiative of the Pollen Estate, remains a world class destination for artists, galleries and art audiences.”
Jenny Casebourne, Head of Portfolio, The Pollen Estate
Fear Gives Wings to Courage, Part II, 11 – 25 July 2025
The exhibition will take place across the galleries on Cork Street. In addition to reflecting the Cork Street Banners Commission, Fear Gives Wings to Courage will be staged within the galleries on Cork Street.
Alessandro Raho (b. 1971) has created a new body of work at Alison Jacques that responds to the exhibition theme. Raho shares Jean Cocteau’s fascination with magic and sees his Playing Cards (2025) and Levitating Woman (2024) as reminiscent of Cocteau’s love for illusion, and the magic that permeates his films. Caroline Coon’s (b. 1945) works at Stephen Friedman Gallery will be presented in dialogue with ceramics created by Jean Cocteau. Inspired by feminism and the politics of sexual liberation, Caroline Coon’s unique paintings contest binary notions of gender and oppressive patriarchal values. Three decades of Lucy Jones’ intimate self-portraits at Flowers Gallery challenge societal constraints of femininity and conventional aesthetic norms. The British artist has established herself for her distinctively provocative portraits, identified by raw and expressive brushwork paired with vibrant colour. Alon Zakaim Fine Art will highlight the pioneering Impressionist artists who, despite facing intense criticism and rejection from their contemporaries, overcame these challenges to lay the foundations for a new visual language. The work of Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903), Eugène Boudin (1824 – 1898), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 – 1919), William Gropper (1897 – 1977) and Albert Gleizes (1881 – 1953) will be on view. Tiwani Contemporary will feature the works of Virginia Chihota (b. 1983) and Felix Shumba (b. 1989). Both artists present surreal interpretations of liberating emotional and historically traumatised landscapes, echoing some of the aesthetic, critical, and political themes associated with the Surrealist movement and the interwar period.
Juan Gris’ (1887 – 1927) Le joueur de guitare (Arlequin à laguitare) (1918) encapsulates the defiant spirit of artistic reinvention and resistance at Nahmad Projects. In addition, Wassily Kandinsky’s (1866 – 1944) Pfeil zum Kreis (1930) commemorates Peggy Guggenheim’s pioneering programme at Guggenheim Jeune, the site of his first UK solo exhibition in 1938. Messums London’s presentation of work by Yan Wang Preston (b. 1976) questions the socio-political forces that shape our environment, pushing back against dominant narratives of place and belonging, the tension between power and vulnerability, and touches on censorship. ‘Invitation to the Voyage’ is a series of 5 prints made in 1969 by the painter and printmaker, Patrick Procktor RA (1936 – 2003) at The Redfern Gallery. These lyrical and dreamlike compositions of his boyfriend, Gervase Griffiths, and friends – the designer, Ossie Clark, and the actor, Eric Emerson – relate to poetic reverie, and the spiritual ascent into the unknown.
Waddington Custot will showcase Peter Blake’s (b. 1932) enduring practice which continues to explore the subversive potential of visual culture through collage, portraiture, and the appropriation of everyday imagery. New works will be exhibited alongside a selection of the artist’s earlier works. Goodman Gallery will present one of the films from Shirin Neshat’s (b. 1957) ‘Dreamers’ series, the UK premiere of the work. Dreamers is a trilogy of black-and-white video installations which explores the world of dreams through the perspectives of three women. The films are semi-autobiographical and are inspired by Neshat’s own dreams.
Nodding to the history of Cork Street and the pioneering artists whose work was first showcased here, MASSIMODECARLO’s display of works by Yang Pei-Ming (b. 1960) is a series that focuses on Francis Bacon while Osborne Samuel celebrate the legacy of the street with the presentation of work by Barbara Hepworth (1903 – 1975) and Henry Moore (1898 – 1986) who were included in an exhibition titled Unit One in 1934. Holtermann Fine Art’s exhibition Balancing Acts includes a painting by Cuban painter Michel Pérez Pollo, whose work reimagines a Surrealist vision for contemporary audiences.
Fear Gives Wings to Courage Part I, Until end of 2025
Tiwani Contemporary’s nomination of contemporary Zimbabwean artist Virginia Chihota’s (b. 1983) painted biomorphic forms and Alon Zakaim Fine Art’s presentation of American cartoonist, muralist and political radical William Gropper (1897 – 1977) speak to the transhistorical and transcultural legacies of the Cork Street area. For both artists, the body is represented as a mutable form, suspended in space and evoking Surrealism’s interest in the subconscious self. The movement’s aspiration to inspire change through the fantastical and subversive also reflects the fact that many associated artists looked to disrupt politically oppressive structures, with a number having concurrent practices as activists. Such is the case with Goodman Gallery’s presentation of Iranian photographer and moving image artist Shirin Neshat (b. 1957), Stephen Friedman Gallery’s British counter-culture activist and artist Caroline Coon (b. 1945), Nahmad Projects’ Spanish painter Juan Gris (1887 – 1927), and MASSIMODECARLO’s presentation of Chinese-French painter Yan Pei-Ming (b. 1960). Across different generations, these artists have challenged monolithic and hegemonic ideas of representation, especially where freedoms of expression and identity have been complexified by all manners of risk and censorship.
Waddington Custot’s nomination of British artist Peter Blake (b. 1932) is indicative of the gallery’s long-standing relationship with an artist who, whilst a prominent figure in the Pop Art movement, also engages with surrealist tendencies in his work. Often juxtaposing urbanity and the everyday with the uncanny, Blake’s work resonates with The Redfern Gallery’s presentation of British artist Patrick Procktor RA (1936 – 2003), who developed a personal iconography mined from different art historical periods, but reflecting the political milieu of a rapidly shifting and culturally fraught 1960’s Britain as an unfettered painter of the queer experience. Also echoing Procktor’s commitment to challenging hegemonic representations of the figurative in art is Flowers Gallery’s selection of British painter Lucy Jones (b. 1955): an artist who addresses ideas of femininity, vulnerability, aging and disability. The dreamlike quality of Jones’ paintings is echoed in Alison Jacques’ display of British painter Sophie Barber (b. 1996). Here, the artist’s interest in the natural world is depicted through her surreal and folk-like compositions. By comparison, Indian artist Biraaj Dodiya’s (b. 1993) work that features in Frieze No 9. Cork Street’s collaboration with New Delhi-based Vadehra Art Gallery is a study in abstraction as a visual language that has the potential to disrupt and transform. Messums London’s showcase of Chinese-British photographer Yan Wang Preston’s (b. 1976) landscapes are mediations between the unknown and the sublime, exploring constructs of memory and identity.
Sam Fogg’s presentation of art of the Middle Ages, including a stained glass panel from circa 1230, gestures back to the foundational role Cork Street plays. Reflecting the gallery’s dedication to the meticulous preservation and care of medieval artworks, Fogg champions objects whose historical potency is undoubtedly vital. Such is the gallery ecosystem harboured by Cork Street, one whose persistence in supporting artists from across generations and cultures is central to London’s arts ecology.
About
‘La peur donnant des ailes au courage’ (Fear Giving Wings To Courage)
It was on 30 Cork Street (now Holtermann Fine Art) that legendary art collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim established her gallery space, ‘Guggenheim Jeune’, in 1938. Jean Cocteau’s La peur donnant des ailes au courage (Fear Giving Wings To Courage) featured pencil, crayon, chalk and – notably – the artist’s own blood in a drawing of bandaged and bloodied figures. One of these figures is said to be a portrait of his lover Jean Marais, on a cotton bedsheet. The work was labeled obscene by British customs authorities due to its depiction of nudity and pubic hair. Highly influential to both the Surrealist and Dadaist movements, Cocteau’s intention behind the painting was also to reflect his staunch support for the antifascist Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War. It was only through Guggenheim and her advisor Marcel Duchamp’s incessant petitions to the government that the artwork was eventually released on the condition that it would be shown out of public view, and in a back office of the gallery. It was hung above Peggy Guggenheim’s desk in her office.
Tarini Malik is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. She was the Shane Ackroyd Associate Curator of the British Pavilion at the 2024 edition of Venice Biennale working with the artist Sir John Akomfrah. Previously, she was a curator at the Whitechapel Gallery, and at the Hayward Gallery. From 2013-2017, Malik was Head of Exhibitions for the artist Isaac Julien. In 2015, she was Research Curator for All The Worlds Futures at the Venice Biennale curated by Okwui Enwezor. Malik has also held curatorial posts at Fiorucci Art Trust, Frieze Projects and Serpentine Galleries. She has published her writing in various magazines and journals and lectured widely on cultural studies and curating.
Cork Street Galleries, an initiative from The Pollen Estate, lies at the centre of the highest concentration of galleries in London. Since Freddie Mayor opened the first gallery on? Cork? Street ?in 1925, the? street? has remained at the forefront of cutting-edge art movements. As well as becoming the unrivalled hub for Surrealism during the 1930s, Cork Street launched the careers of some of the leading forces in art from the past century. Modern artists such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth have exhibited on the street, while Francis Bacon’s work was seen publicly for the first time in a group exhibition in 1933. In 1985, the Grey Organisation staged what they described as an “art terrorist action”, vandalising some of the galleries on Cork Street with grey paint.
Pioneering gallerists have been drawn to Cork Street with longstanding spaces being established by The Redfern Gallery (since 1936), and Leslie and Victor Waddington (from 1957 and now Waddington Custot). Messums London and Flowers Gallery joined in 1993 and 2000 respectively while Robert Fraser, an influential dealer who had spent time in London and New York opened a gallery on Cork Street in 1983, exhibiting work by Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1985, Victoria Miro took over the gallery from Fraser.
The street’s artistic legacy continues today with Cork Street Galleries incorporating 15 trailblazing gallerists presenting work ranging from the middle ages to contemporary art, including Alison Jacques, Alon Zakaim Fine Art, Flowers Gallery, Goodman Gallery, Holtermann Fine Art, MASSIMODECARLO, Messums London, Nahmad Projects, Osborne Samuel, Frieze No.9 Cork Street, The Redfern Gallery, Sam Fogg, Stephen Friedman Gallery, Tiwani Contemporary, and Waddington Custot.
In 2018, The Pollen Estate acquired 23,000 sq ft of additional gallery space on the East side of the?street, tripling the existing space and underlining the estate’s commitment to preserving? Cork? Street? as the epicentre of the London art scene and the spiritual home of modern and contemporary art.
Cork Street has been at the heart of London’s art scene since 1925, when Freddie Mayor opened its first gallery. By the 1930s, it had become a hub for Surrealism and the site of Francis Bacon’s public debut in 1933. The street showcased major modern British artists like Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, while The Redfern Gallery (1936) and Waddington Galleries (now Waddington Custot) (from 1957) established long-standing presences. In the 1980s, Robert Fraser exhibited Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat before Victoria Miro took over his space in 1985—the same year the Grey Organisation staged its notorious ’attack on Cork Street’ grey paint protest. The arrival of Messums London (1993) and Flowers Gallery (2000) reinforced Cork Street’s contemporary credentials. Today, Cork Street Galleries continues this legacy with 15 leading gallerists presenting art from the middle ages to the contemporary, and having experienced an exciting revival in recent years, marked by the permanent opening of three distinguished galleries in autumn 2023: Alison Jacques, Stephen Friedman Gallery, and Tiwani Contemporary. This new chapter reaffirms Cork Street’s historic reputation as a central hub for contemporary art in London and signals a renewed energy and commitment to its cultural legacy.
