Overview London Art Fair is the January fair that opens the UK art calendar, 120-plus galleries in the Business Design Centre in Islington selling modern British and contemporary art from the early 20th century onward, and in 2026 a Magritte and a Max Ernst hung on the same stand. Around the main fair sit curated sections for themed shows, emerging and international galleries, and prints and editions, plus a museum partner that brings its own collection. The fair was first held in 1989, reached its 38th edition in 2026, and is organized by Immediate Media. On site The fair runs five days after a VIP preview, with a Wednesday Late in the middle of the week. Platform takes one theme a year and invites galleries to show established, overlooked and emerging artists on it: ceramics in 2019, Reframing the Muse in 2023, and The Unexpected in 2026, curated by the art historian Dr Ferren Gipson around artists who push materials and process. Encounters gathers emerging and international galleries, in 2026 from Mexico, Turkey, Japan and France. In 2026 the museum partner was the National Trust, which hung surrealist and post-war abstract works from two modernist homes in its care, Ernő Goldfinger's 2 Willow Road in London and Patrick Gwynne's The Homewood in Surrey; Sheffield Museums take the slot in 2027. Talks, tours and live performances run through the week. Talent and Influencers The 2026 fair leaned into surrealism. Gilden's Art Gallery brought Max Ernst's Star of the Sea (1950) and René Magritte's Indiscreet Jewellery (1963), England and Co showed Marion Adnams's Dark River (1944), Mollbrinks Gallery paired Salvador Dalí sculptures with the Swedish surrealist Frank Björklund, and Winsor Birch showed the rediscovered surrealist Henry Orlik. National Trust curator John Chu gave a talk on the collections at 2 Willow Road and The Homewood. Platform has had guest curators: Gemma Rolls-Bentley in 2024, with a show on queer love and life built with Charleston, the modernist home of the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and Lisa Anderson for 2027. Brand presence Partners attach by category and by section. In 2026 XPENG was automotive partner and principal supporter of the VIP program, and Cancer Research UK was charity partner; Savills and Sipsmith logos also ran on the fair's site in 2026. For 2027 the fair signed Saffery, the accountancy firm, as finance partner and Zürich Tourism, which promotes the city's museums and Zurich Art Weekend, as destination partner. A partner can take the fair as a whole as headline partner, put its name on a single curated section or discipline, or build a tailored activation inside the Business Design Centre.