Pippy Houldsworth Gallery opened its current space in Heddon Street in 2011, the Mayfair backwater that has also been home to Gagosian, Sadie Coles HQ, and Sprovieri. Since its move, the gallery has focused on greater representation of female artists and intergenerational crossover, becoming one of the most influential mid-size galleries at an international level.
The gallery has presented the first UK solo exhibitions of many significant artists including Daniel Arsham, Jacqueline de Jong, Mary Kelly, Faith Ringgold and Carrie Mae Weems. Additionally, artists who have made new works specifically for the gallery’s micro-project space, The Box, include Susan Hiller, Martha Rosler, Arlene Shechet, Yinka Shonibare OBE and Ai Weiwei. Work by Alina Szapocznikow exhibited in The Box in 2015 represented the artist’s first London exhibition.
The gallery also works closely with younger artists, often providing the opportunity for their first one-person exhibitions. Such artists include Jadé Fadojutimi, Stefanie Heinze, and Chemu Ng’ok.
Pippy Houldsworth Gallery works to attain museum exhibitions and acquisitions for each of its represented artists and to garner critical support. The gallery also commissions writers to produce essays or other texts and publishes substantial artist catalogues. Recent acquisitions include The Museum of Modern Art, NY; Dallas Museum of Art, TX; ICA, Miami; New Art Gallery, Walsall; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Sztuki, Łódź; Tate, London; Museum of New Zealand, NZ; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, and Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Recent highlights include the acquisitions of Mary Kelly’s archive by the Getty Institute, LA, and of Jacqueline de Jong’s Situationist Times archive by Yale University; an October File published in Kelly’s name; Faith Ringgold and Mary Kelly’s talks at Tate Modern, and the instigation of Ringgold’s survey exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery.