Contemporary Art Gallery Near Me: Thaddaeus Ropac at Ely House, Mayfair

Thaddaeus Ropac's London gallery is in Ely House, an eighteenth-century bishop's mansion at 37 Dover Street, London W1S 4NJ, and it opens Tuesday to Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm. From 13 October to 18 December 2026 it shows Georg Baselitz's The Heroes, a body of 1965 to 1966 paintings borrowed from museums including Tate. For anyone looking for a contemporary art gallery near me between Green Park and Bond Street, it combines museum-level loans with the experience of walking through a Georgian townhouse room by room.

Ely House was built in 1772 by the architect Sir Robert Taylor for Edmund Keene, Bishop of Ely, as his London residence, according to the gallery's own announcement; Selldorf Architects' project page gives the date as 1776, so both years circulate. In 1909 the architects Smith and Brewer remodelled it for the Albemarle Club. The New York architect Annabelle Selldorf renovated the listed building for the gallery, working with Cowie Montgomery Architects, and Ropac opened here in spring 2017. Look up at the facade before going in: the stone front with its pedimented doorway is one of the best on Dover Street.

Thaddaeus Ropac, founded in 1983, runs galleries across Europe and Asia, and Ely House is its London base. The gallery said the building spreads over five floors and more than 1,500 square metres, with four distinct gallery spaces plus an extra exhibition room on the ground floor of an adjoining building that overlooks Berkeley Street. Polly Robinson Gaer has led the London gallery since the opening and is still listed as its executive director. The scale means a single artist can take over the whole house, as Baselitz does this season.

The Heroes is the first exhibition in the UK devoted only to this body of work, according to Ropac. In 1965 and 1966, Georg Baselitz produced around 60 paintings, 130 drawings and 38 prints, each built around a solitary figure of epic proportions, barefoot and dressed in rags or torn military uniforms. The figures were made in a divided Germany barely twenty years after the war, and they feel bruised rather than heroic. The loans come from Tate, the Berlinische Galerie, Museum Frieder Burda and Museum Küppersmühle Duisburg.

Works named by the gallery include Ein moderner Maler (A Modern Painter) from 1966, Spekulatius from 1965, Mit Roter Fahne (With Red Flag) from 1965 and 1. Kopf (1. Head) from 1966. Start with A Modern Painter, the clearest statement of the series, then compare the drawings, which show the same giant hands and small heads worked out at speed. The exhibition comes with a catalogue featuring an essay by Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is worth leafing through if you want context for the period.

The pleasure of Ely House is the contrast between the art and the building. You are walking through a Georgian residence that spent most of the twentieth century as a members' club, and the move from floor to floor still feels like moving through a private house rather than a white-box warehouse. Take your time on each level; with four gallery spaces stacked on top of one another, the Baselitz paintings are grouped in smaller sets, which suits their intensity. Plan around forty-five minutes for the whole house, and a few more minutes for the Berkeley Street side room.

The published hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm, so Sunday and Monday are out. Ropac does not publish an accessibility statement or photography policy on its contact page, so ask at reception before filming, or phone ahead if you need step-free access between floors. Weekday mornings are the quietest time; Saturday afternoons bring visitors working their way through the Mayfair galleries. Commercial galleries welcome browsers, and there is no expectation that you buy, but keep voices low because sound carries up the stairwell of an old townhouse.

Ropac changes its London programme several times a year, which is why Ely House is worth returning to. In 2026 alone, the house has shown Mandy El-Sayegh's Jewel Tones and Oliver Beer's The Sky in the Cave from 5 June to 31 July, followed by the group show Like Music in the Blood from 3 September to 1 October. Baselitz is the only London exhibition listed through December, so there is no rush to squeeze two visits into one week. The gallery's exhibitions page shows the next show once it is announced.

Dover Street runs north from Piccadilly, a few minutes from Green Park station, and it is quieter than Bond Street on weekends. From Ely House, walk east across to Savile Row, about five minutes away, where Hauser & Wirth is showing Cindy Sherman and Lorna Simpson until 23 December 2026. Return via Cork Street and the Royal Academy courtyard on Piccadilly. Skip the luxury shopping strip of New Bond Street if your aim is art; it adds crowds without adding galleries, and the backstreets are much more pleasant on foot.

Ely House suits two kinds of visitor: people who love painting history and want to see museum loans without paying museum prices, and people who simply enjoy old London interiors. It is less suited to children, because the rooms are formal and the works are heavy in tone. If you are new to Baselitz, it helps to know that he later became famous for painting figures upside down; these Heroes are the earlier, upright breakthrough that came before that, which makes this show a useful starting point.

Address: Thaddaeus Ropac, Ely House, 37 Dover Street, London W1S 4NJ. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm; closed Sunday and Monday. Current exhibition: Georg Baselitz, The Heroes 1965 to 1966, until 18 December 2026. Building: Ely House, built for the Bishop of Ely in the 1770s and renovated by Selldorf Architects for the gallery's 2017 opening. Nearby: Hauser & Wirth on Savile Row and the Royal Academy on Piccadilly, both within a short walk.

Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for a quiet Mayfair lunch near Dover Street, or for the best order to see Ely House, Savile Row and the Royal Academy in one afternoon.