McMillan Fine Art
26 Bute Street, South Kensington, London, SW7 3EX
Welcome to McMillan Fine Art, a commercial art gallery at the heart of South Kensington in London.
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The owners at McMillan Fine Art hang their gallery in the old, salon style. Paintings are stacked against one another and crowd the walls in rows of threes and fours. Although commercial galleries and museums today have adopted a cleaner, modern aesthetic of balancing paintings on the walls in isolated symmetries, the McMillan rooms still exhibit in the same chaotic, cluttered space as when they first opened. After twenty-five years, the McMillan galleries have a nostalgic atmosphere and charm that is hard to find in other contemporary, thriving, commercial counterparts.
The gallery also works very closely with its restorer, Carlos Salvador Mira, whose restoration studio is just across the road. The close collaboration between dealer and restorer means that all the paintings and the frames in the McMillan galleries are in excellent condition.
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Walking into these rooms is a very special experience. Frames gleam off the crowded walls as gold and paint catch the eye in a confused, delightful chaos. Paintings are stacked atop one another on and against the walls, inviting the viewer to get up close and fish out what he or she wants to look at, all whilst gingerly navigating the maze of frames, canvases and antique furniture. Art in the McMillan galleries, as it should be for a private collector, is a tactile, involved experience.
Walking into McMillan and Son's is like entering a gilded, golden salon from the past: a space of joyful chaos and curated eclecticism that leads into 'The Back Room'.
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