The West End has become a new center of gravity for London’s contemporary art scene, and nowhere is that more apparent than on Cork Street, where a diverse crowd of established and emerging galleries has been opening.

The contemporary art galleries’ migration from East London back west has been happening gradually, spurred by the proximity of the Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly and the big auction houses in Mayfair, and by efforts from landlords such as Grosvenor and the Pollen Estate to invest in bigger spaces to accommodate artists’ large-scale installations.

The Pollen Estate, in particular, has been working to recapture Cork Street’s former glory as a hub for top gallerists showcasing new and established artists and a destination for collectors and visitors from around the world.

The Mayor Gallery was the first to open on Cork Street in the 1920s, showing works by Francis Bacon, Alexander Calder, Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Joan Miró. Peggy Guggenheim had a gallery there in the late 1930s, while Waddington (now Waddington Custot) has been on Cork Street since the ’50s.

In the 1980s, the art dealer Robert Fraser, known as “Groovy Bob,” operated from Cork Street, promoting the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.

Victoria Miro would later take over Fraser’s space on the street before moving to the East End, which in the late ’90s had attracted myriad galleries with its vast warehouse spaces, Cool Britannia energy and Fashion and restaurant scene.

But East London’s star has been fading for some time. White Cube, once the epitome of arty Hoxton Square cool, has returned to its original site in St. James’s, near Piccadilly, and has a second London outpost in Bermondsey, not far from Tate Modern.

“The East End is not really a reference point now. The center is increasingly the West End, which is partly down to the fact that you’ve got these [powerhouse] American and Swiss galleries coming in and, obviously, they’re going to be in Mayfair,” says Alison Jacques, who’s moving her gallery from Fitzrovia to Cork Street in the fall.

The move to Cork Street is a homecoming for Jacques, who used to work for the British art dealer Leslie Waddington, whose gallery has long been an institution on the street.

“I was the receptionist there and used to gaze out of the window at a little gallery down the road. It had a gothic wooden facade. I used to think, ‘One day, maybe I’ll have my own gallery, that gallery, on Cork Street,” she says.

Nostalgia isn’t the main reason for Jacques’ move to Cork.

“We’ve got to take the gallery to the next level — we need space for the artists,” says Jacques, whose new gallery spans more than 6,000 square feet. There will be three exhibition spaces with ceiling heights of more than 20 feet. Jacques says the new, soaring proportions will create “a chapel” for her artists, who include Sheila Hicks, Fernanda Gomes and Takuro Kuwata.

In October, Jacques will inaugurate the gallery with “Infinite Potential,” a show of new works by Hicks, who had a retrospective at The Hepworth Wakefield in 2022.

Goodman Gallery is already on Cork Street and was the first of the new generation galleries to move in.

“We had to be within footfall of the key institutions and key art neighborhoods. Cork Street has always had that amazing geographic pull because people walk between Sotheby’s and Christie’s and the Royal Academy, so we’re in the golden triangle” of art, real estate and Fashion, says Jo Stella-Sawicka, senior director at Goodman who is also a cofounder of London Gallery Weekend, which takes place in June.

Convenience is another big reason behind the galleries’ move to Mayfair, a location that’s proving ideal for time-pressed international visitors who grew tired of making the trek across traffic-clogged London to the East End.

“We’re living in a hyper-globalized city and people have increasingly less time. Maybe in the 2000s you could spend all day traveling to East London. But there are more galleries around today, and it’s about efficiency. You want to be where everybody is, and you want to catch the international visitors who come through London regularly,” Stella-Sawicka says.

The Pollen Estate began a major initiative to reestablish Cork Street’s reputation in 2016, and since then it has tripled the available gallery space. Today Cork Street has the largest concentration of galleries in the U.K., which is the world’s biggest art market after the U.S.  

Goodman landed on Cork Street in 2019 followed by Frieze, which opened its first permanent exhibition space for international galleries in 2021. Stephen Friedman and Alison Jacques will open alongside Tiwani Contemporary in the fall, in time for the Frieze Art Fair.  

“The arrival of this new wave of galleries marks a dynamic new chapter, and brings the total number of galleries on the street to 15,” says Jenny Casebourne, head of portfolio at The Pollen Estate. She describes the street as the “spiritual home” for modern and contemporary art in London.

The Pollen Estate has spent a fortune reconfiguring and expanding spaces on the street to make them suitable for the galleries which, like Alison Jacques, are spending even more money doing their own work to create appropriate spaces for their artists.

Jacques believes the Pollen Estate has been “very, very astute” in the way they’ve managed the street.

“They’ve had a lot of galleries that wanted to rent — or take very long leases — on those spaces, but they turned them away because they wanted trailblazing galleries, or ones that already had reputations that meant something,” she says.

The galleries arriving on the street are diverse, large and small and many specialize in contemporary African art.

Stephen Friedman Gallery’s opening exhibition will showcase the work of Yinka Shonibare, a body of sculptures, masks and tapestries. The final room will feature works by African artists and artists from the African diaspora, some of whom participated in Shonibare’s residency program at G.A.S. foundation in Lagos, Nigeria.

Mira Dimitrova, director of sales at the Stephen Friedman Gallery, says the gallery is “excited to be part of this community, and Cork Street’s revival is a testament to London continuing to be a vital part of the global art world.”

Tiwani Contemporary will move to 24 Cork Street a year after opening a Lagos gallery space. Maria Varnava, who founded Tiwani in 2011, says the gallery’s mission is to represent artists throughout Africa and its global diaspora.

“Together our galleries will be a bridge between the African continent and its international diaspora, allowing us to program and exhibit art by our represented and exhibited artists on a larger scale, both literally and metaphorically,” says Varnava, a Greek Cypriot who grew up in Lagos.

Asked why she wanted to be on Cork Street, Varnava says “it was our intention to be somewhere unexpected.”

She also wants to send the message that “you can have a gallery that focuses on artists from Africa and the diaspora in central London. When I started 11 years ago, the narrative around contemporary art from Africa wasn’t the same as it is today. People had different expectations of what I was showing,” says Varnava, adding that people often expected the prices to be lower than art made by Europeans or Americans.  

Varnava says Cork Street “holds such historical weight, and it was important to see our artists and program included in the conversation and the history of the street. Here, I’m able to maximize the visibility of the artists and engage with a wider audience. It’s an important location, especially for a smaller gallery.”

The gallery plans to inaugurate the new space this fall with a series of events and solo exhibitions by Joy Labinjo and Miranda Forrester, both of whom will present new paintings centered around portraiture and domesticity.

In early August, Frieze brought another African dimension to the street, hosting an Afro-Cuban street party with a live rumba jam session, dance workshops and performances. It was the latest public event that Frieze has hosted over the past three years since it opened its gallery, No. 9 Cork Street.

Selvi May Akyildiz, the director of No. 9, says Frieze’s presence on Cork Street has been important for staging exhibitions and remaining connected to the London gallery scene all year round, not just at the annual fair, which will take place this year from Oct. 11 to 15 in Regent’s Park.

So far, the street has proven to be a top platform for Frieze, and the artists it wants to highlight.

In April, Frieze hosted “Manifold (Deluxe)” which was organized by the young Nigerian curator Faridah Folawiyo. It was a group exhibition of Black female artists from across the globe who work across painting, photography, video and printmaking.

“The show was amazing, and it was the first time we’ve had queues of visitors [at the Cork Street gallery],” she says. “We’re trying to reach out to different audiences. Some of them will be familiar with us from Frieze Week, and others will be coming for something specific.”

While May Akyildiz describes Cork Street as “a capital of galleries in London,” she notes that there are myriad hives of artistic and gallery activity across London, and that without those creative engines, Cork Street — and the West End in general — wouldn’t have the pulling power they have today.

“Artists come from smaller communities all around London. Without them, and all of the other events going on,” London wouldn’t be the art capital it is, May Akyildiz says.