Contemporary Art Gallery Near Me in Marylebone: Lisson Gallery on Bell Street

Lisson Gallery opens Tuesday to Saturday from 11 am to 6 pm at 27 Bell Street, London NW1 5BY, and until 7 November 2026 it is showing the Korean painter Ha Chong-Hyun alongside a late-career survey of Carmen Herrera. Bell Street is a quiet side road off Edgware Road in north Marylebone, so the gallery suits anyone searching contemporary art gallery near me from Paddington, Marylebone station or Baker Street. Two London buildings, two strong shows and a 59-year history make it one of the most rewarding art stops north of Oxford Street, and no booking is needed during opening hours.

Nicholas Logsdail launched the gallery in early 1967 by converting three floors of his own house at 68 Bell Street, and the first exhibition opened on 4 April 1967, according to The Art Newspaper's 50th anniversary feature. Logsdail is still listed as founder on the gallery's contact page, with his son Alex Logsdail as chief executive. Over the decades Lisson became the London home of conceptual and minimal art, and it never left the street that gave it a start. Today its public galleries are at 27 Bell Street and 67 Lisson Street, a block apart.

The architecture is part of the story. Tony Fretton Architects completed a gallery building for Lisson on Bell Street in 1990, according to the e-architect project record. The architectural archive Drawing Matter notes that the gallery grew into one building on Lisson Street and two on Bell Street, that the Lisson Street property was a former sweet shop, and that the larger space has no right angles. Walking through it, you notice the walls meet at slightly odd angles rather than in a neat box.

Ha Chong-Hyun is one of the founding figures of Korea's Dansaekhwa movement, and the Bell Street show runs from 24 September to 7 November 2026. His best-known technique is visible from across the room: he pushes oil paint through the reverse of coarse hemp canvas, so it emerges on the front in tiny beads and ridges. A highlight is Conjunction 20-118 from 2020, oil on hempcloth measuring 130 by 97 centimetres. Stand close, then step back to the doorway, because the texture flattens into a single colour field at distance.

Do not skip the early rooms. The gallery's text describes woven, painted strips from his Naissance series and a colourful folded and rippled canvas from the late 1960s, plus works from the 1970s in which he burned impasto surfaces and attached coiled springs or barbed wire directly to the canvas. Those pieces were made under military rule in South Korea and feel far rougher than the calm Conjunction paintings. Seeing both phases together shows how much violence sits underneath the later, calmer surfaces.

Pulse, Pause, Repeat brings together drawings, paintings and sculpture from the last ten years of Carmen Herrera's life, curated by the art historian Marie Perennès and also on view from 24 September to 7 November 2026. Herrera, the Cuban-born abstract painter who found real recognition only in her nineties, worked in hard-edged blocks of two or three colours. The show spreads across four galleries. Look for Angulo (Orange) from 2017 to 2018, part of her Estructuras series of painted sculptures, and a pair of small studies in acrylic marker.

Those marker studies are the quiet surprise of the show. They are where Herrera tested a single angle or a single sliver of colour before committing it to a large canvas, and they make the finished works easier to read. The gallery's listing says Lisson London rather than naming a specific building for this exhibition, so ask at the Bell Street desk which door to use; staff will point you to the right entrance. Combined, the two exhibitions take about an hour if you read the texts.

Opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm, and by appointment outside those times. Sunday and Monday are closed, which matters if you plan a weekend in Marylebone: only Saturday works. The later 11 am start is the trap for early risers, so use the first hour for breakfast on Marylebone High Street and arrive at opening. Weekday afternoons are the calmest. Opening evenings for new shows are the busiest, with crowds spilling onto the pavement, and they are a fun but poor time to actually look at paintings.

Two new London exhibitions open on 19 November 2026 and run until 13 February 2027. Christopher Le Brun, the painter and former president of the Royal Academy, shows a group titled The Mind's Weather, while Dana Awartani, the Saudi Palestinian artist known for geometry, embroidery and work with traditional crafts, has a solo presentation. That leaves a short installation gap from 8 to 18 November. The exhibitions page lists nothing between those dates, so a visit in that window is best swapped for the Wallace Collection, covered below.

From the gallery, walk east along Bell Street to Edgware Road for Lebanese bakeries and late-night grills, or head south-east through Dorset Square toward Marylebone High Street, roughly fifteen minutes on foot. The Wallace Collection on Manchester Square is the strongest pairing: free entry, eighteenth-century French paintings and armour, and a striking contrast with Herrera's flat colour. If you would rather stay contemporary, the gallery-dense streets of Mayfair are a twenty-five-minute walk away. A Friday or Saturday works best, since every stop is then open.

Lisson is a commercial gallery, so you will share the rooms with collectors, students from London's art schools and people simply cutting through Lisson Grove. Nobody expects you to buy, and the exhibition texts on the gallery website are worth reading before you arrive. The etiquette is the same as in a museum: no touching, keep bags close, and give people space in front of the larger canvases. Photographs of whole rooms are fine at most commercial galleries, but ask the desk before filming video here, since no photography policy is published.

Address: Lisson Gallery, 27 Bell Street, London NW1 5BY, with a second space at 67 Lisson Street, NW1 5DA. Email: contact@lissongallery.com. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 11 am to 6 pm, and by appointment; closed Sunday and Monday. Current shows: Ha Chong-Hyun and Carmen Herrera, Pulse, Pause, Repeat, both until 7 November 2026. Next: Christopher Le Brun and Dana Awartani from 19 November 2026 to 13 February 2027. Nearby: Edgware Road and Marylebone stations are the closest stops.

Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP to plan a Saturday route from Lisson Gallery to the Wallace Collection with a lunch stop on Marylebone High Street in between.