Frith Street Gallery — Soho Square Townhouse
Frith Street Gallery at 60 Frith Street in Soho, London, is a contemporary art space housed in a 1681 townhouse that produced four consecutive Turner Prize nominees in the late 1990s. Founded in 1989 by Jane Hamlyn, the gallery pioneered a focus on female artists like Tacita Dean and Cornelia Parker. Nearby at number 20, an eight-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived and performed in September 1764.
London · from the walk “Canvas & Cobblestones” · audio ~4 min · Generated
60 Frith Street, London W1D 3JJ
- Jane Hamlyn founded Frith Street Gallery in London in 1989 inside a Georgian townhouse with features from 1681.
- Frith Street Gallery represented four consecutive Turner Prize nominees in the late 1990s, including artist Cornelia Parker.
- Eight-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stayed at 20 Frith Street starting in September 1764 during his European tour.
- While living on Frith Street, young Mozart lodged above Thomas Williamson's corset shop and met Johann Christian Bach.
Who founded the Frith Street Gallery in Soho, London in 1989?
Take a look at this elegant Georgian townhouse... sixty Frith Street. The building you're standing before has original features dating all the way back to sixteen eighty-one. That makes it older than almost everything else on this street. And yet inside these ancient walls, some of the most radical contemporary art of the last three decades has been made and shown.......... Frith Street Gallery was founded in nineteen eighty-nine by Jane Hamlyn, right here in this Georgian townhouse. Now, Jane Hamlyn isn't just any gallerist. She's the daughter of Paul Hamlyn, the legendary publisher and philanthropist. She had art in her blood... and a vision for Soho that nobody else quite shared. Initially, the gallery was a forum for contemporary drawing, then it expanded into a wide range of artistic media. By the late nineties, this small Soho townhouse had produced a Turner Prize nominee four consecutive years running... Callum Innes, Craigie Horsfield, Cornelia Parker, and Tassita Dean.......... And speaking of Tassita Dean... she's become one of the gallery's defining voices. Her work addresses the process of plotting coordinates in space and time, making connections between past and present, fact and fiction. She still exhibits here regularly, across both this Soho Square space and the newer Golden Square location.......... The gallery is known for a focus on female artists... something genuinely pioneering for the nineteen nineties London art scene. Names like Marlene Dumas, Shilpa Gupta, and Cornelia Parker have all called this place home.......... Now... here's where the story gets extraordinary. Look just a few doors down the street. The most famous inhabitant of this stretch of Frith Street was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who lived at number twenty, aged just eight, from September seventeen sixty-four during his grand tour of Europe. The Mozart family were lodgers of Thomas Williamson... who made corsets! Imagine that. An eight-year-old musical genius, living above a corset maker's shop. While staying on Frith Street, young Mozart met Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, who had an important influence on Mozart's musical style. The Mozarts held concerts at Williamson's house, charging the public to attend.......... So this single stretch of Soho pavement connects a seventeen eighty-one townhouse, an eight-year-old composing prodigy, and the cutting edge of twenty-first century art. Frith Street doesn't just remember its past... it keeps reinventing it.