Sarah Myerscough has long been a champion of contemporary craft. Not only does the gallerist represent an international roster of artists working at the intersection of craft, design and sculpture, but since launching her eponymous gallery in 1998 she has played a leading role in elevating this material-led practice in the eyes of serious collectors.
She is also on a mission to bring craft back into schools. It’s fitting that her eponymous gallery’s new Mayfair home is within a Victorian-era schoolhouse and church complex (later, it became part of the Polytechnic of Central London). Derelict for the last decade and fresh from a top-to-toe renovation, it has just opened with two solo exhibitions, by Ernst Gamperl and Frances Pinnock.
German master craftsman Gamperl’s exhibition, Urkraft (meaning primordial power), is a series of around 30 dynamic ash, oak and maple forms. “He’s the finest woodturner in the world,” Myerscough says; Gamperl won the first Loewe Craft Prize in 2017. “He pushes the material to the extreme, creating sculptures with open apertures that feel connected to nature. He celebrates the contours of the wood, and the pieces have such a strong presence. In a gallery that has five-metre-high walls, they hold their own.”
Upstairs, leather is similarly celebrated in visual artist Pinnock’s Accoutrements & Illuminations show. Her vertical oak tanned sculptures are made with techniques borrowed from puppet- and shoe-making, and adorned with curious attachments to guide self-reflection. A brass and lead pendulum hangs in the middle of one; resin snooker balls are pinned to another. “These labour intensive, handstitched bodily forms are expressions of Frances’s inner self, whether moments of anxiety or joy,” Myerscough says.
The gallery’s future programming includes a survey of contemporary weaving in spring 2026. Myerscough’s educational mission is set to unfold next year too, with the launch of a new charitable venture, the Crafted Arts Foundation. The basement level of the gallery will be transformed into a centre dedicated to advancing craft through workshops, lectures, residencies and events.
“I have a general concern about the lack of craft education and want to see it valued as it should be,” says Myerscough. “I’m building a library around this new cultural landscape in art; it’s important to create a manifesto in what I think is an important moment in time.”
Ernst Gamperl’s Urkraft *and Frances Pinnock’*s Accoutrements & Illuminations both run until November 29.
Sarah Myerscough Gallery
The Schoolhouse, 18 Balderton Street, W1K 6TQ
Hours:
Mon to Fri 10am–6pm
Sat 11am–5pm
