What to expect at Frieze London & Masters 2026

Frieze London and Frieze Masters run from 14 to 18 October 2026 in The Regent's Park, marking the 24th edition of the contemporary fair and the 14th of its historical counterpart. Between them they bring 318 galleries to north London for five days, and with them the annual reordering of the city's cultural calendar that is Frieze Week.

Frieze London 2025. Photo by Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Frieze

The pairing is the point. Frieze London deals in what is being made now, with an unusually heavy emphasis this year on artist-led and curator-led programming. Frieze Masters deals in what has already been made, though rarely in the way you expect, its currency is rediscovery, scholarship and the steady widening of the canon. Walk both in a day and you get contemporary practice held up against several thousand years of precedent.

Eva Langret, Director of Frieze EMEA, describes a fair "shaped with energy and integrity, and alive to the ideas driving contemporary art", with established names and emerging galleries showing in dialogue. Emanuela Tarizzo, Director of Frieze Masters, frames her fair as one that "has always resisted the idea of a single art history", a position borne out this year by two new curatorial threads devoted to overlooked figures and queer visual history.

Frieze London

176 galleries, 43 countries

The fair opens with two solo entrance stands selected through a proposal-led process, Márcia Falcão with Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel, and Agata Ingarden with Berthold Pott. That framing, discovery first, blue-chip second, continues through the floor plan.

Hales, Hew Locke, Sikandar 2, 2025. Image courtesy the Artist, Hales London and New York, P·P·O·W. © Hew Locke. All rights reserved, DACS 2026. Photo by Damian Griffiths

Solo presentations to seek out

Lisson shows new work by Dalton Paula, who reconstructs Black historical figures of the 16th to 19th centuries from oral histories and fragmentary records. Gagosian brings six large-scale new paintings by Albert Oehlen. Pace presents Marina Perez Simão's layered land and seascapes, while Galerie Jocelyn Wolff installs 24 paintings and drawings by Miriam Cahn on ageing and the body. Fort Gansevoort stages the first European solo of Myrlande Constant, whose beaded drapo reclaim a traditionally male Vodou practice. Modern Art shows Francesca Mollett; Richard Saltoun pairs Helen Chadwick with Cathy de Monchaux; Casa Triângulo and FOUNDRY SEOUL co-present Fernanda Galvão's saturated fictional ecosystems.

Group presentations

Sadie Coles HQ has commissioned Princess Daffodil, a monumental Alex Da Corte sculpture standing over 3.5 metres, shown alongside work by Yu Nishimura, Alvaro Barrington, Sarah Lucas and Helen Marten. Victoria Miro combines Kudzanai-Violet Hwami with Clare Woods, Khalif Tahir Thompson and Paula Rego drawings, ahead of Rego's 2027 Courtauld show. Hauser & Wirth spotlights London-based artists including Frank Bowling, Sonia Boyce and Michaela Yearwood-Dan. Edel Assanti reconstructs Marcin Dudek's childhood Soviet-era Kraków apartment as a site-specific installation housing work by Lonnie Holley, Jenkin van Zyl and others. Hales debuts Sikandar 2, a new equestrian sculpture by Hew Locke.

Also worth the detour, Nature Morte's The Restless Present, curated by the Fitzwilliam's Habda Rashid and timed to Bharti Kher's V&A exhibition; Carlos/Ishikawa, showing Issy Wood as her National Portrait Gallery solo runs; Amanda Wilkinson's pairing of Derek Jarman, Joan Jonas and Ajamu X; and anniversary presentations from Galerie Gisela Capitain (40 years) and Galerie Nordenhake (50).

Nature Morte, Ayesha Singh, Reordered Records: Amalgamation as sculpture, 2025, Biodegradable polylactic acid SAS.0263, 21 x 13 1/2 x 18 in (HxWxD), 53.3 x 34.3 x 45.7 cm (HxWxD), Weight - 4.930 kg, Edition of 5 plus 1 artist's proof (#1/5). Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte, India

Frieze Masters

142 galleries, 33 countries

Masters presents antiquity, Old Masters and 20th-century work under one roof.

Frieze Masters 2025. Photo by Hugo Glendinning Courtesy of Frieze

Antiquity and Old Masters

Rupert Wace brings a 26th-Dynasty bronze of Ptah once owned by William Randolph Hearst, and displayed at San Simeon, where MGM's Cedric Gibbons is thought to have drawn on its mummiform silhouette when sketching the first Oscar statuette in 1927. Colnaghi shows a life-size Portrait of a Nobleman (c. 1627–32) by Anthony van Dyck alongside Maria Blanchard and Leonor Fini. ArtAncient has a life-sized diorite head of Sekhmet excavated at Abydos. Daniel Crouch Rare Books presents the Andrew Edmunds Collection of Caricatures: over 10,000 prints from c. 1680 to 1850, Gillray and Hogarth among them. Raccanello & Leprince reunite a Sèvres déjeuner of c. 1812, a New Year's gift to Empress Marie-Louise, with its original leather case.

Egyptian Head of Sekhmet, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, c. 1390–1352 BCE. Polished granodiorite, h. 29.5 cm. Courtesy ArtAncient.

20th century and postwar

Marc Selwyn Fine Art stages Lee Bontecou's first solo presentation at a European fair, with late-1950s to 70s sculpture and a rare early sketchbook. Galleria Continua shows nine dark-glazed Anish Kapoor ceramics from 1994 with the pivotal Not Eve (1989). Hales presents Kay WalkingStick's UK solo debut around Cool-Warm/Warm-Cool (1979), her first diptych. Annely Juda surveys 20th-century portraiture including Auerbach, Hockney and rare figurative Anthony Caro.

Global modernism and Asian art

Athr shows Mounirah Mosly, who in 1973 became the first Saudi woman to hold solo exhibitions in Jeddah and Riyadh. Vigo's Pre-Pixel brings Ibrahim El-Salahi's Slade-period works from the family collection to market for the first time. Rossi & Rossi pair Abbas Kiarostami's near-abstract Snow Series with Siah Armajani's dot-matrix works of the mid-1960s. Prahlad Bubbar has a life-sized mid-17th-century portrait of Maharana Amar Singh I; Joost van den Bergh brings Gutai founders Sekine Yoshio, Shiraga Kazuo and Tanaka Atsuko; Kent Antiques offers Iznik ceramics with Mughal and Safavid miniatures.

The curated sections this year

There are six curated threads across the two fairs. Three are at Frieze London, three at Frieze Masters, and two of them are new.

Three of them are at Frieze London. Artist-to-Artist gives a platform to seven artists, each nominated by a major figure. Focus brings together 35 galleries from 17 countries, none of them older than 12 years. The Code Universe is new this year, curated by Carol Yinghua Lu around pop, conceptualism and the post-digital.

Bolanle Contemporary, Eilen Itzel do Espirito Santo, Ofun Irosun, 2024, Acrylic and oil on canvas,65 × 230 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Bolanle Contemporary

The other three are at Frieze Masters. Queering Modernism is also new, curated by Anke Kempkes on LGBTQIA+ visual languages up to the 1980s. Spotlight, curated by Devika Singh and Sofia Gotti, gives solo booths to rediscovered 20th-century artists. Reflections, curated by Abby Bangser, draws on two influential homes.

Artist-to-Artist

Returning for a second year and supported by Tiffany & Co., Artist-to-Artist turns selection over to artists themselves. Jorge González Santos, nominated by Gala Porras-Kim, shows collaborative weaving and smoke-dye drawings rooted in Puerto Rican material culture (Embajada). Jota Mombaça, nominated by Otobong Nkanga, brings MUD/EMBANKMENT with ceramics and raw earth (Galeria Jaqueline Martins). Also: Eusung Lee, Eilen Itzel do Espírito Santo, Unathi Mkonto, Caroline Monnet and Paul Robas.

Alice Amati, Paul Robas, Long Story, 2026, Ink, encaustic and oil on board, 20 x 30 cm. Photo Roberto Apa

Focus

Stone Island return as Official Partner for Focus and funding a bursary for every participating gallery, is where the fair's newest galleries are, this year like last, prominently placed rather than tucked away. Laurie Smith (Wschód) paints the history of Huddersfield's Gemini Club, the gay nightclub whose closure by police harassment prompted the national Pride march to relocate there. Ryan Huggins (a. Squire) recreates a German sex-cinema viewing cabin. Steph Huang (Public) skewers oversized olives on a steel bar cart. Ella Fleck (Ehrlich Steinberg) presents Training Material, a sculpture broadcasting men reading OnlyFans chat scripts.

The Code Universe

Curated by Carol Yinghua Lu, director of Beijing's Inside-Out Art Museum and co-curator of the 2027 Istanbul Biennial. Focused across the late 1970s to now, it looks at how popular culture is produced and consumed. Selma Selman paints on scrap metal (acb); Payne Zhu shows a new real-time rendered video installation (Spurs); Carolyn Lazard presents two works on medical care, including an archival video on non-consensual experiments at Holmesburg Prison (Trautwein Herleth).

Queering Modernism

The first curated section at Masters devoted to queer visual history, tracing desire and self-representation from early Modernism to the 1980s. Alberta Pane puts Claude Cahun in dialogue with Judy Chicago. Agnews shows Lotte Laserstein's Portrait of Louis Hahne (1938), painted after the gallerists' invitation that saved her life. Victoria Miro and David Zwirner share a booth for a solo Alice Neel presentation.

Spotlight & Reflections

Spotlight gives solo booths to rediscovered artists, Pacita Abad at Alison Jacques ahead of her Reina Sofía retrospective; Sri Lankan abstractionist Dr H.A. Karunaratne at Saskia Fernando; Mohamed Melehi at Loft Art Gallery. Reflections draws on Casa Luis Barragán and London's Cosmic House, with Alessandro Mendini's Poltrona di Proust at Ammann and a solo booth of Ana Pellicer at Masa Galería.

Programming and partner activations

Deutsche Bank presents Ojalá by Studio Lenca in its lounges at both fairs, drawing on the artist's Indigenous Central American heritage and experience of undocumented migration, 30 hammocks suspended above the floor bearing volcanic rocks at Frieze London, and seven paintings from his Historiante series extending across antique frames at Masters. Turkish Airlines and Frieze Studios present Gulnur Mukazhanova's triptych Bosağa: Journeys Across Cultures and Time. Degussa shows Ken Nwadiogbu, winner of the 2026 Young Generation Art Award, with an immersive installation incorporating Akwete fabric. The Abu Dhabi Culture Lounge returns with a pavilion honouring the late Hassan Sharif.

Elsewhere in the programme, Theo Triantafyllidis's Feral Metaverse (Spider) as winner of the Frieze London Artist Award, Gray Wielebinski's Production, and the dunhill x Frieze Masters Talks Programme, 'Breaking the Mould', curated by Arturo Galansino. KAMS and Frieze Studios bring Hwang Sueyon's first UK presentation.

Tadashi Kawamata's studio. Image credit Florie Berger.

Ruinart continues its Conversations with Nature series with 2026 Carte Blanche artist Tadashi Kawamata, and brings its Art Bar to Masters for the first time. De Beers returns with the second chapter of Voyage Through the Diamond Realm, showing rough stones fluorescing under ultraviolet light. illycaffè launches In Minor Keys, a cup collection by four artists showing at the 61st Venice Biennale. Stone Island's ninth Frieze uniform T-shirt features an artwork by Arébénor Bassène, sold at Selfridges' The Corner Shop.

Ruinart, Frieze London 2025. Images courtesy of Ben Broomfield and Patrick Straub

Beyond The Regent's Park

No.9 Cork Street turns five with two exhibitions open until 24 October, Jordan Nassar's No History of Shapes with The Third Line, and Robin F. Williams's Act Natural with P·P·O·W, her first UK solo. Mr & Mrs Smith stages its first photography exhibition there too, with work by Tina Barney and the late Martin Parr. New Frieze Week Partner Poliform hands its Kings Road showroom to carved wood works by Orfeo Tagiuri, free and open throughout the week.

Click here to discover our pick of art exhibtions to see in London during Frieze Week.

Eating at the fair

Frieze has spent years building a restaurant line-up that stands up on its own, and 2026 is no exception.

Sessions Arts Club at Frieze London 2025, by A Studio Between. Image credit Leon Chew

At Frieze London, sit-down dining comes from Jikoni, Maison François and Sessions Arts Club, with pop-ups from BAO, Rita's, Sayuri, Yalumba Wine Bar and Company Drinks. WatchHouse joins for the first time this year.

At Frieze Masters, Trullo, Ham Yard Restaurant & Bar and Nobu Catering return, joined by Pophams on debut. Ruinart's Art Bar arrives at Masters for the first time.

Ham Yard Restaurant & Bar, Frieze Masters. Image courtesy of Ham Yard Restaurant

A practical note, the preview days are the busiest for the restaurants as well as the booths. If you are visiting Thursday, book or eat early.

Click here to discover the places to dine across London during Frieze Week 2026.

Dates, location and tickets

Frieze London and Frieze Masters, 14–18 October 2026, The Regent's Park, London. Frieze Masters is on Gloucester Green at the north-east corner of the park, postcode NW1 4HA, with a complimentary shuttle running between the two fairs roughly every 15 minutes.

Wednesday 14 October, 11am to 7pm at both fairs, invitation only.

Thursday 15 October, 11am to 1pm preview at both fairs, then general admission from 1pm to 5pm at Frieze London and 1pm to 7pm at Frieze Masters.

Friday 16 October and Saturday 17 October, 11am to 7pm at both fairs.

Sunday 18 October, 11am to 6pm at both fairs.

Book tickets at frieze.com

Do not forget Frieze Sculpture on the way to Frieze London. The fourteenth edition brings together 11 international artists in the English Gardens of The Regent's Park, between the two fairs. It is free, there is no ticket and no timed entry, and it is open from 16 September to 1 November 2026. Fatoş Üstek curates for a fourth year.