Little House Mayfair

Little House Mayfair was refreshed with a new collection within a collection in spring 2026, taking the theme of ‘artists on artists’. Picasso is quoted as saying ‘good artists borrow, great artists steal.’ Whether thieving or borrowing, having a lively and complex relationship with artists is a source of endless inspiration. 

 

The first work acquired for the collection was Paulina Olowska’s painting – a portrait of the American sculptor Louise Nevelson in front of Nevelson’s large-scale sculpture. This painting is part of an ongoing excavation by Olowska to look again at stories of art, placing sidelined figures centre stage. Tim Braden also pays homage to a great woman artist of the 20th century with his portrait, also evolved from a photograph, of the German-Jewish artist Anni Albers. Braden depicts her at Teotihuacan, where she is about to embark on climbing the temple – the stairs of which are colourfully painted by Braden in an homage to Alber’s distinctive textile and print work. 

 

These imaginary dialogues with artists of the past contrast with Johnnie Shand Kydd’s photographic portrait of his friend, the British artist Damien Hirst. A young Hirst stands in a field, and is conceptually shown with his artwork – the grazing cows bring to mind his formaldehyde sculptures that included cows. Another photographic work portraying an artist who emerged at the same period as Hirst is Mary McCartney’s portrait of Tracey Emin. McCartney posed Emin in the guise of another great woman artist who explored expression and personal pain in her paintings, the Mexican icon Frida Kahlo. The collection also includes Emin’s own work, an early monoprint dating from 2006. Titled 'Self Portrait as a Cat', it shows us the artist evading her own likeness and instead showing her animal altar-ego. The same approach is taken in David Shrigley’s self-portrait, the text of which reads: ‘This is me. This is what I look like’, and portrays a dog. Taking the opposite approach is Chantal Joffe whose unflinching self portrait from 2022 tackles her own face in her typically uncompromising style. Lucy Whitehead also takes a close cropped composition for her self-portrait, but adopts the style of Rembrandt. 

 

Like Whitehead, several other young artists in the collection refer to historic artists, demonstrating that medieval, Renaissance and Baroque art remains a vital source of inspiration. Nick Jensen’s small painting borrows from a Fra Angelico painting he recently visited in Florence. Glen Pudvine’s contemporary painting has the oldest references of all, juxtaposing 40,000 year old cave painting hand prints with Baroque Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s hands squeezing flesh.