Contemporary Art Gallery Near Me in Mayfair: David Zwirner on Grafton Street

David Zwirner London sits at 24 Grafton Street, London W1S 4EZ, and opens Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm, closed on Sundays. Until 31 October 2026 it is showing two painters at once: Louis Fratino's first London solo show, Prose, on the main floors, and Daichi Takagi's Suchness in the Upper Room. If you are searching contemporary art gallery near me somewhere between Bond Street and Piccadilly, this is one of the most rewarding single stops in Mayfair, because one doorway gets you two very different ideas of what painting can do this autumn.

David Zwirner's gallery began in 1993 on Greene Street in SoHo, New York. Its international expansion started in 2012 with this building, and the gallery says every one of its spaces worldwide has been designed by Selldorf Architects. When the London opening was announced, ART iT reported that the new address was an 18th-century Georgian townhouse once home to Robert Cecil, the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury and three-time Prime Minister, to the cosmetics founder Helena Rubinstein, and later to a private bank.

The same 2012 report described a gut renovation by Annabelle Selldorf of the five-storey building, with the main exhibition rooms spread across three levels and close to 10,000 square feet of space. The report said the gallery was on track to open during Frieze week that October, with paintings by Luc Tuymans as the first show. That history explains the feel of a visit: you climb through a domestic house rather than walk into one big white box, and each floor has its own scale.

Prose runs from 18 September to 31 October 2026 and is the New York painter's first exhibition with the gallery since it announced his representation earlier this year. The centrepiece is Jasmine, an oil on canvas about 199 by 300 centimetres, big enough that you will want to stand back against the opposite wall before walking up to the brushwork. Nearby, Ale in his mom's bedroom (after Corot) borrows the quiet mood of Corot's A Girl Reading from around 1845 to 1850.

Two more works are worth hunting down. Summer in the city refers to the British modernist Edward Burra's watercolour The Torturers from around 1935, and The subway car stretches more than two metres tall on a narrow canvas. The gallery's text says the paintings insist on slowness, materiality and attention, and that is good advice for visitors too. Give the show twenty minutes and look at how Fratino builds skin, fabric and tile with the same patient strokes.

Suchness, open from 24 September to 31 October 2026, is the first solo presentation of the Japanese painter in the United Kingdom. The title translates a Buddhist idea of things simply being as they are. In paintings such as Stone and Moonlight, each roughly 194 centimetres on the long side, intricate forms rise out of velvety black grounds. The small works are just as striking: Raindrops measures only 41 by 32 centimetres, and a second Stone is oil on linen mounted on panel at about 21 by 30 centimetres.

Go up after Fratino rather than before. The black canvases read best when your eyes have adjusted from the colour downstairs, and the Upper Room is smaller and calmer, so you can stand close without blocking anyone. Do not rush past the tiny panels near the door; they hold the most detail per square centimetre in the building.

From 5 November to 19 December 2026 the gallery shows No Plan at All: Prints from BORCH Editions, with an opening reception on Thursday 5 November from 6:30 to 8 pm. BORCH Editions is a Copenhagen intaglio studio founded in 1979 by Niels Borch Jensen, known for large and technically demanding etchings. The artist list includes Mamma Andersson, Georg Baselitz, Huma Bhabha, Tacita Dean, Julie Mehretu, Albert Oehlen and Rosemarie Trockel. Note that the building changes over between 31 October and 5 November, so plan your visit on either side of that gap.

Commercial galleries can feel guarded, but the door here is open during listed hours and nobody expects you to be shopping. Walk in, take the stairs, and ask the front desk for the checklist if you want titles and dimensions. London Gallery Weekend describes the space as fully accessible. The gallery does not take unsolicited artist submissions, so leave portfolios at home. Weekday mornings are the quietest; Saturday afternoons bring a steady stream of collectors and students working through Mayfair.

Grafton Street is a short connector off New Bond Street, which makes this an easy anchor for a gallery loop. Thaddaeus Ropac's Ely House is on Dover Street, a couple of minutes away, and Savile Row, with Hauser & Wirth and the new Sadie Coles HQ townhouse, is about ten minutes on foot to the east, just short of Regent Street. Kingly Street in Soho, home to the second Sadie Coles space, is a few minutes further. Green Park station is the nearest Tube for most visitors. If you are in town for the Zwirner shows away from Grafton Street, the gallery also lists Robert Ryman at the Barbican until 28 February 2027 and William Eggleston at The Photographers' Gallery until 21 February 2027.

Address: David Zwirner, 24 Grafton Street, London W1S 4EZ. Email: london@davidzwirner.com. Hours: Monday to Saturday 10 am to 6 pm, closed Sunday. Now showing: Louis Fratino, Prose, and Daichi Takagi, Suchness, both until 31 October 2026. Next: No Plan at All: Prints from BORCH Editions, 5 November to 19 December 2026. Founded: 1993 in New York; London gallery opened 2012.

Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for a quiet lunch near New Bond Street or the best order to see Ropac, Sadie Coles and Zwirner in one Mayfair afternoon.