About

From the start, Art First has been an independent contemporary art gallery, working supportively with a stable of artists over a thirty-year period in central London.

Attracting museum interest and a loyal group of collectors, Art First presented a dynamic exhibitions programme with regular artists’ talks and stimulating dinners in the gallery space. It also developed a philanthropic arm through the Art First Patrons group offering special support for artists’ studio requirements or for small but significant poetic publications.

Participation in key art fairs in the UK, the USA, Europe and in South Africa together with the regular publication of artists catalogues and monographs contributed to works by gallery artists being placed in museums and public collections world-wide, including:

Arts Council England; The British Museum, London; The Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery; City Art Centre, Edinburgh; The Fleming - Wyfold Foundation, London; The Government Art Collection; The Harris Museum, Preston; The Iziko National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum; and, Leeds Art Gallery; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Library Gallery, University of IOWA, USA; Tate Gallery; The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Wolverhampton Art Gallery; The Womens' Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge.

For fifteen years from 1994 Art First was based at 9 Cork Street in Mayfair, then moved to Eastcastle Street in Fitzrovia in 2010 for the next seven years. The most recent gallery space was at St Mary’s Walk in Lambeth which closed in 2024 when the building was due to be refurbished.

This website is both an archival record of exhibitions and publications – some of which can be read online where the black tag indicates – and it is a current expression of Art First’s continuing activities on a consultancy basis, working on special projects and continuing to place works by its key artists.

Art First also has the privilege of representing the Estate of Simon Lewty, with Clare Cooper as his Artistic Executor. His remarkable drawings covering five decades are available for sale and a catalogue raisonné is being prepared together with a stand-alone website. The British Library’s Artists’ Lives Sound Archive which is shared with Tate Gallery, has fifty hours of recorded interviews with Lewty, to be released in due course.

For latest news about Art First artists and for sales enquries, please sign up to the newsletter, or contact Clare Cooper, the founding director: