{"id":68040,"date":"2026-09-29T22:04:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T21:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/?p=68040"},"modified":"2026-09-29T22:04:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T21:04:54","slug":"british-art-fair-2026-from-hockney-to-digitalism-the-changing-face-of-britain-s-art-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/british-art-fair-2026-from-hockney-to-digitalism-the-changing-face-of-britain-s-art-market\/","title":{"rendered":"British Art Fair 2026: From Hockney to Digitalism, the Changing Face of Britain\u2019s Art Market"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Ahead of the Frieze marathon, British Art Fair offered a narrower, and therefore particularly intriguing, focus, bringing modern and contemporary British art together under Saatchi Gallery\u2019s roof. Founded in 1988, the fair specialises exclusively in British art. This year, visitors could see work by David Hockney, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Bridget Riley, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Paula Rego, Stanley Spencer, Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the roll-call of famous names is only the first layer. What makes British Art Fair especially interesting is the insight it offers into how Britain\u2019s art market works, and where it is heading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hockney as a Point of Reference<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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One of the highlights of the 2026 fair was the special exhibition David Hockney: A British Eye<\/em>, curated by Eleanor Ekserdjian. Drawn from works offered by various exhibitors, it amounted to a portrait of the artist as seen through the eyes of today\u2019s market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At British Art Fair, Hockney provided an almost ideal point of reference. Here was an artist whose place in art history has long been assured, whose work belongs to major museums and private collections, and whose market has developed over decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the exhibition prompted a question that inevitably occurs to any collector: which of the artists exhibiting on the floor above might find themselves in a similar category in twenty or thirty years\u2019 time? That alone was a reason to visit British Art Fair for more than its familiar names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collecting Needn\u2019t Begin with a Six-Figure Cheque<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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British Art Fair also continues to challenge another assumption: that collecting serious art requires a vast fortune. Its special \u00a35,000 and under<\/em> selection brought together works priced at \u00a35,000 or less, from paintings by established artists to pieces by those a collector has yet to discover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an important part of the art market\u2019s ecosystem. Few people become collectors at the moment they first buy a work for \u00a3100,000. More often, it begins with a single piece bought simply because they cannot bear to leave without it. Then comes the most important part: they begin to develop an eye for art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Emerging Artist at 60? Why Not?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Another intriguing initiative this year was Born To<\/em>, curated by Jo McLaughlin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project was dedicated to artists over 50 who had begun a serious artistic practice relatively late in life. An open call attracted more than 500 applications, from which five artists were selected: Mike Kelly, Annie Luke Turner, Myrna Mitchell, Kas Williams and Richard Wilshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a small but telling comment on an art industry that has spent decades preoccupied with the idea of the \u2018emerging artist\u2019, a term almost automatically associated with youth. British Art Fair offered a more contemporary interpretation: it is perfectly possible to emerge at 50, or at 60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most radical discussion about what we should consider art today, however, was unfolding elsewhere at the fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digitalism: Art After the Digital Revolution<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Regular readers of London Cult. will already be familiar with curator Rebekah Tolley-Georgiou. Last year, we spoke to her at length<\/a> about Digitalism and the attempt to define a new artistic movement almost at the moment of its birth. Digitalism arrived at British Art Fair in 2024, when the fair\u2019s owner, Will Ramsay, invited Tolley to create the first section in BAF\u2019s long history devoted entirely to digital art. The result was PIVOTAL: Digitalism<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term itself is associated with artist and Royal College of Art lecturer Lol Sargent, who referred to their students as \u2018digitalists\u2019. Tolley, however, took the idea considerably further. Rather than define yet another group of artists using computers, she proposed Digitalism as a new \u2018ism\u2019, a potential artistic movement for the digital age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2026, the project returned to British Art Fair as Spotlight: Digitalism<\/em>. The distinction matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not just digital art: Rebekah Tolley explains Digitalism<\/a><\/blockquote>