Dealer’s Choice: Lyndsey Ingram

The art market is full of personalities, but dealers and gallerists often operate behind the scenes. In this regular series, Apollo asks art dealers to introduce themselves and their businesses. Lyndsey Ingram runs Sims Reed, London.

Tell us a bit about the history of your business…

I started at Sims Reed 12 years ago, when Max Reed employed me to take care of the gallery side of the business. Back then it was just me, now I employ two full time and two part time people and we have moved to a much bigger gallery space. Before that I was in the Sotheby’s print department.

What are your specialist fields?

Post–war prints. We have in our inventory most of the big names of the 20th century and are the biggest secondary market dealers in Hockney prints. We also have a contemporary works on paper programme.

What’s the most exciting work you’re currently offering?

We are about to hold Jane Hammond’s first UK show (she is incredibly well known in the US and is in every museum collection you can think of). She has created a new work in her Butterfly Map series especially for this show entitled All Souls Canterbury depicting the UK. The hand-drawn map is combined with paper butterflies, digitally scanned from actual specimens, then collaged to handmade bodies and antennae made from horse hair.

What’s been your greatest triumph as a dealer?

Our stand at Art14 which was a dedicated Hockney print retrospective, and our involvement in ‘Hockney, Printmaker’ at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. We originally procured most of the works at the show and arranged for their loan.

How has the market in your field changed since you started dealing?

The print market is much more dynamic. As unique works are becoming harder to find, more people are turning to prints.

Do you collect yourself? And in the same field as you deal?

Yes, exclusively prints. I have some very contemporary editions alongside gallery stock.

Which work have you been sorriest to part with?

A hand-coloured Picasso lithograph which was dedicated to one of the printers and dated 1945. He was in Paris at the end of the war and it is a portrait of two women. I bought and sold it at the bottom of the market.

If you weren’t an art dealer, what would you be?

I would be an artisan baker!

‘Jane Hammond: No Assembly Required’ is at Sims Reed from 16 October–14 November.