Last day of Frieze London 2023, we’ve been to The main fair, Frieze London itself, a number of times during the week now, we’re still feeling a little underwhelmed, it still feels flat, conservative, a bit of a let down, a cop out. Yes there were good things in the main fair, we’ll be along with our now traditional best of in a moment. If Frieze London was a giant disappointment in 2023, and the whole week just a little flat, then Frieze Masters saved until the final day, was just treat after treat, Frieze Masters, was brilliant.

You are right, Frieze Masters isn’t really what Organ is about, we’re about the new, the here and now, the next things, the back street artist-led spaces, the alternatives (or the lack of them right now), we’re about visits to Yasmin Grant‘s studio or what Melike or Mark Burrell are doing this week, we’re not about old masters from from the 18th century or 1960s pop art or that alter piece from 1442, we’re about the right here right now, but but but…  

Is Frieze Masters becoming the thing during Frieze week? As the main event on the whole fails to deliver again, is the Masters where it really at now during Frieze Week? It certainly feels like the payoff this week, the treat at the end after all the hard work (and yes it was hard work, even the parties). Frieze Masters is just full of amazing pieces of art. paintings you stair at for ages, stories you try to read, brief glimpses into so many lives long past, that beautiful portrait of that young artist painting a landscape, painted in 1831 by Amelie Legrand De Saint-Aubin, that amazing painting by an unknown artist of the American School painted around 1825  (presented by Phillip Mould Gallery), the red beads they’re both wearing, what is the story, what are the stories who are they? It is a wonderful painting, the two of them looking right at you, just you and the two of them meeting for a few minutes, a painting that had to be returned to three or four times during the day. And that is the thing here, all these pieces of art that the dealers showing here will soon place with collectors, this really is a once in a lifetime chance with so so many of the wonderful pieces in here. 

And there is so much in here, the Lichtenstein pop art, those maps from the 14th Century, the bright orange of Howard Hodgkin, those vivid red pieces by Katsumi Nakai, there’s a wonderfully bright Cederic Morris still life from 1952 and who was Sarah Wordsworth? There’s so many fine fine fine pieces of art and yes, of course there is something very wrong with a T.Rex skeleton being sold into a private collection to sit next to the Andy Warhol soup can and the Rolex, there’s something very wrong with a lot of the pieces in here being sold into private collections (or collectors bank vault, to noly ever be seen on balance sheets), all this art almost certainly never never to be seen again 

There’s a great moment when a man in the red jacket walks passed a woman with the red bag in her hand, both in front of the woman in the red coat, all this in between two Katsumi Nakai pieces. You get so conditioned after walking around Frieze London for days that you come into Frieze Masters, you see a wall of art, think to yourself, oh gawd, who’s this Matesse wannabee, then you look closer and see it is actually a wall of Henri Matisse pieces. i might hace looked at too much art this week!

There’s an Egyptian gilded wood and bronze Ibis on original base, it dates from the late dynastic period, 25th – 31st Dynasty, 715-332BC, It stands at 41cm including the base, It had a red dot on it which means it has probably sold to a private collector and probably won’t be seen again. You see so many amazing things at Frieze Masters And yes, the curated spaces we bemoaned the lack of back at the main event, well we find that curated combination of spaces  alive and well in here, Modern Women, curated by Camille Morineau and Aware dedicate t oart created by women between 1880 and 1980.

Hey look, Frieze Masters isn’t really what Organ is about, I spent hours exploring, it was brilliant, I saw so much, I enjoyed so much, can you go art blind? It got to a point where I couldn’t suck up any more (and I couldn’t even see the way out!), I could write about it at length, I could go on (and on) about the thrill of that big Mary Lovelace O’Neil painting, or being that close the summer of Roger Fry or the Kings Cross of Leon Kossoff or the gluttony of Paula Rago‘s fish, I could go on and on but Frieze Masters isn’t really what we’re about. Frieze Masters was as brilliant as it has been every year. Frieze Masters saved the week (sw) 

As always, do clcik on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show of not that brilliant photos taken on a phone…