On the 27 November, Sotheby’s and Tom Dixon will joined forces to present a special pop-up exhibition showcasing highlights from Sotheby’s December Old Master Paintings sales. Tom Dixon X Old Master Paintings featured a carefully curated selection of works by artists of the Dutch Golden Age displayed at the designer’s flagship store, The Coal Office, in King’s Cross, at which talks by both Tom Dixon and Sotheby's Old Master specialists were held for invited guests.
Presenting exceptional examples of still life, portrait and landscape painting by artists including Van der Ast, Johannes Bosschaert and Rachel Ruysch, the exhibition celebrated the exceptional quality and skill of artists from the Netherlands in the seventeenth century.
The Dutch Golden Age was a period of European history marked by an extraordinary revolution in industry, travel and trade. It was an age of astonishing artistic production as artists of the Netherlands produced painting upon painting to sate the appetite that the newly monied merchant classes had developed for art to furnish their homes. These homes lined Amsterdam’s newly dug, and now world famous, canals.
Set within the Victorian brick viaducts of Coal Drops Yard, in the heart of London’s industrial quarter, Tom Dixon’s Coal Office similarly sits upon the tow-path of London’s Regent’s Canal. The canal was opened for use in 1816, in the midst of England’s own industrial revolution. Today the Coal Office is at the centre of one of the most creative areas of London, that has been newly renovated to showcase the magnificent architecture of industrial Britain.
The Coal Office offers a unique backdrop against which to view Old Master Paintings of the Dutch Golden Age alongside contemporary furniture, lighting and accessories from Tom Dixon’s collections.
Speaking about the collaboration, Tom Dixon said, "In any entrepreneurial or creative pursuit we need to continually seek ways to refresh our activities. Through this partnership with Sotheby’s, we really wanted to see how Old Masters from such an important period in Dutch history would react to being shown in a repurposed industrial setting – the juxtaposition of contemporary furnishings, a rough Victorian backdrop and 300 year old paintings allows us to rethink what is the correct mix for the modern interior."
Of the exhibition Chloe Stead, Sotheby’s Senior Specialist, Old Master Paintings said: “The paintings going on display at The Coal Office were painted in an age of industry, in an age of travel and trade. It was the age in which the canals and infrastructure of the Netherlands were put into place, inspiring creativity and entrepreneurship in art and craftmanship.
To now be able to present this group of Old Master Paintings in this unique environment, which combines Victorian engineering and contemporary architecture and design will, we hope, be a unique and inspiring experience.“
The exhibition is on display at The Coal Office on 27 November, ahead of Sotheby’s Old Master Painting sales on 4-5 December 2019.
