Image: Anna Esposito, Cross Bräu, 1973. Collage on acrylic resin, 93 x 78 cm. Courtesy the artist and Gramma_Epsilon Gallery
Frieze London and Frieze Masters, held side by side in The Regent's Park, enter their final days and close on 18 October 2026. Together the two fairs bring almost 300 galleries from 48 countries and regions to London, and Frieze presents this year's editions as a conversation between contemporary practice and art history.
At Frieze Masters, rediscovery is placed at the centre. Its director, Emanuela Tarizzo, says the fair resists the idea of a single art history and foregrounds rigorous scholarship and the expansion of the canon. Nearly 140 galleries from 30 countries and regions cover ancient civilisations, Old Master painting, sculpture and decorative arts, works on paper, modern British and postwar art, the historical arts of Asia and reassessed 20th-century voices. Frieze notes a strong group of specialist galleries showing rare and often overlooked works, with newcomers including Benappi Fine Art, Pelgrims de Bigard and Kunsthandel S. Mehringer.
Two curated sections focus on the 20th century. Spotlight, in its largest edition so far, is curated by Dr Devika Singh and Dr Sofia Gotti of the Courtauld Institute of Art and highlights pioneering work made between the 1950s and the late 1970s in South Asia, South America, Europe, North and West Africa and East Asia. The new thread Queering Modernism: Visual Languages of the 20th Century, conceived by Anke Kempkes, runs through the fair and brings forward work engaging with queer experience and LGBTQIA+ subjects, from early modern experiments to the 1980s. Works illustrated by Frieze include Anna Esposito's collage 'Cross Bräu' (1973), Claude Cahun's 1929 photograph 'Claude Cahun et Roger Roussot dans Barbe-Bleue de Pierre Albert-Birot', and a still life by Osias Beert the Elder.
Frieze London, with 172 galleries from 42 countries and regions, is framed around discovery and the next generation of artists, anchored by London's own gallery scene. Its new section The Code Universe is led by Carol Yinghua Lu. Kristell Chadé, Frieze's executive director of fairs, describes both fairs as built on the idea that contemporary art and art history are most compelling in dialogue.
Beyond the tents, Frieze Sculpture remains free to visit in the park's English Gardens until 1 November 2026.
