Twentieth Anniversary, Alan Cristea

Which would you prefer: an original work or an edition? The answer is not always straightforward, as Gallery Director Alan Cristea has repeatedly proved. Cristea has earned worldwide fame and an internationally prestigious stable of artists partly through his gallery’s dedication to producing editions and prints.

As Alan Cristea celebrates its Twentieth Anniversary this year, two exhibitions at this gallery in London celebrate the talents of both artists and gallerist.

Alan Cristea, London Birthday Portfolio

The first exhibition highlights “birthday portfolio” of twenty-one artists represented by Alan Cristea. Howard Hodgkin, Julian Opie, Michael Craig-Martin and Jim Dine are amongst the celebrated names that have produced prints in a range of techniques such as woodcuts, etchings and lithography, with no restrictions on their content. Some of them acknowledge Cristea directly; others are more guarded in their references. All profits from the sale of these portfolios at this contemporary art gallery London will be donated to charity.

Represented artist by Alan Cristea, Julian Opie, has said of Cristea that he ‘champions and enables the creation of art’, because the prints and multiples ‘allow greater dispersal of art and offer artists another way to work. There is a democracy in this which Alan has championed for 20 years.’

Alongside this personal tributes to the director from his artists is be a second exhibition, surveying highlights from both the gallery’s history as one of the leading commercial dealers in Europe, and from Cristea’s personal collection. Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein and Patrick Caulfield all occupy the same space in a special opportunity to survey the development of Western visual art throughout the 20^th century.

What better way to begin 2015 than with a show to celebrate the work of a leading London gallerist.