About Us

The history behind AWP

AWP was founded in September 1994 with the purchase of a small oil from an antiques fair at Alexandra Palace. A year later I hired some white screens, put them up in my kitchen and sent out invitations to my friends. It was quite a novel idea and it proved successful. With my basic accounting, if I had money left after an exhibition I put it towards buying more stock for the next one! For the next few years this was how I continued, until space became available near to where I lived, so I exhibited in a sitting room type environment. It was at this stage I was offered a stand at the Watercolour & Drawings Fair, held at the Park Lane Hotel, on Piccadilly. This was a bit of a revelation but it was great fun and I had incredible support from my fellow exhibitors. I even had Prince Charles on my stand at one fair! 

1997 and 1999 saw the arrival of our two children, and a move shortly afterwards, out of London. It was after I arrived to set up at the 2001 Watercolour Fair, and realised I had left all my unframed stock behind in the country, that I knew that if my business was to continue, I had to run it out of proper premises, and not the chaos of a spare bedroom! I developed part of the already much-changed stable block into a stock room and area for displaying pictures. Apart from a brief foray to the NEC in Birmingham I have found it better to stay at home and exhibit here. Art fairs are very expensive to exhibit at and can be hard to do as a sole trader. I find that dealing from home-based premises is a more friendly, relaxing and hopefully less pressurised way in which to buy art. I have sold to people from all over the world but my most exciting sale was to the British Museum; a small pen and ink drawing by Lady Elizabeth Lee, a pupil of Alexander Cozens, showing the blot technique he had taught her.  

My background

I was brought up in an art-loving family. Due to a major hip operation as a child I was home-tutored for two terms, so instead of being taught sciences, I went off to a museum or gallery twice a week in the afternoons. Far more interesting in my opinion! This interest stayed with me and formed the basis of my working choices for life.

I worked for various galleries in London after leaving school and was lucky enough to work for Andras Kalman at both his Folk Art gallery in Sloane Street and then at the Crane Kalman Gallery on the Brompton Road. He was a wonderful boss and would frequently sit me down and tell me about his friendship with Lowry, amongst others. I also spent short periods working for the Raab Gallery, Millbank, and for the Portland Gallery, then in Bury Street.

I then swapped England for Washington DC, where I had an unpaid four months at the National Gallery of Art. It was at this moment that I knew that this was what I wanted to do. A very wise American lady persuaded me to give up the menial job I had managed to secure to get a green card, in order to return to the UK to get a degree. I did a ten week decorative arts course in the Spring before starting at UCL that September. I was exceptionally lucky to study under Tamar Garb and Lynne Cooke whilst I was there. Post-university life changed unexpectedly, and I never returned to the States. Instead I went into the world of auctioneering at Christies, on their Graduate Trainee Scheme. After the initial year of training, I managed to sneak my way into the Contemporary Department under Gerard Faggionato. The art market was changing hugely in the period in which I was there, 1990-1993, and it was a fascinating time. I learnt about many different fields thanks to the variety of objects being sold there. 2014 will see the 20th anniversary of AWP, hence the arrival of my new website to take my business forward into the digital world in which we now live.