What are the best galleries in London? Artists choose their favorites

Multidisciplinary artist Lauren Baker, who is exhibiting at the Venice Biennale until November, named contemporary galleries — and a hotel — as her favorite places to see art in London.

“Alice Black Gallery offers daring fine art with deeply conceptual works,” she told CNBC via email. “It’s not all pretty, there’s often some dark and strange pieces that get you contemplating the meaning of life,” she said. The gallery is in London’s Soho and represents artists such as Rachael Louise Bailey, who works in a variety of mediums including sculpture, and abstract artist Matthew Harris.

Baker also likes Woolff Gallery in Fitzrovia, describing its collection as joyful. “With a real focus on texture and tactile works and many sculptural elements, the works are fun and colorful, and you just want to touch everything,” she said. The gallery represents artists including Apolline Bokkerink, whose work focuses on snowscapes and forests, and Joanne Tinker, who repurposes candy wrappers, discarded foils and champagne cork cages in her work.

Upscale Mayfair hotel Claridge’s opened its ArtSpace gallery in 2021, and Baker likes to visit it for its “cool art crowd” in the evening, or goes during the day and takes tea afterward. The gallery has its own café, or visitors can head to the hotel’s grand Foyer and Reading Room for traditional afternoon tea.

Artist and costume designer Machine Dazzle (born Matthew Flower), likes east London contemporary galleries Amanda Wilkinson — for its “impeccable” taste — and Maureen Paley, which has shown work from the likes of Turner Prize winning artists Gillian Wearing and Wolfgang Tillmans. He also recommends Fitzrovia gallery Niru Ratnam for its “forward-thinking and intelligent exhibitions,” he told CNBC by email.

Landscape painter Katharine Edwards, currently working on pieces inspired by the “heat scorched” vistas of Andalusia, Spain, will exhibit at Cricket Fine Art in London’s Chelsea in September.

Her top London galleries include the Royal Academy of Arts, for its “wonderful” exhibitions, she told CNBC by email. The gallery is showing its Summer Exhibition, which features more than 1,700 works chosen by seven Royal Academicians, some of which are available to purchase.

Edwards also likes major London galleries Tate Modern and Tate Britain. “One of my…