2010-04-12

Ben Elwes Fine Art - London - U.K.

Ben Elwes Fine Art has an established reputation as a specialist dealer in the field of Old Master and British paintings. Together with his wife and co-director Rachel Layton Elwes, who comes from an American academic and museum background, Ben is able to offer clients a professional and discreet service based on their knowledge of the international art market.
Their clients include some of the world’s major museums including Tate Britain, the Musée du Louvre, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as such eminent academic institutions as Cornell University, the Yale Center for British Art and the University of Michigan.
Ben Elwes has worked in the international fine art market for over 20 years. In 1987 he joined Christie’s in London and then moved to the internationally renowned Shepherd Gallery in New York in 1990 where he gained invaluable experience at the high end of the art trade. On returning to London, he became a partner at Independent Editions, fine art dealers and publishers specialising in post-war British Art. In 1993 he set up Elwes & Hanham Ltd in Old Bond Street dealing in Old Masters paintings. Ben is a member of the Executive Committee of The Society of London Art Dealers.
Rachel Layton Elwes joined forces with Ben to found Ben Elwes Fine Art in 2004 at 45 Maddox Street, in the heart of Mayfair. She has an invaluable knowledge of many major international collections, having been part of the team that installed and launched the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House in 2000, and was formerly a curator at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Her publications include contributions to the Elements of Design (Mitchell Beazley 2003), Colonialism and the Object (Routledge 1998) as well as numerous articles and reviews in publications such as the British Art Journal and The Magazine Antiques. Rachel also lectures extensively in Britain and in the United States. She is a member of the Acquisition Committee for the Adirondack Museum in New York.

Website : http://www.benelwes.co.uk/