'The extraordinary Goldmark art gallery. In no other small town can you gaze at woodcuts by Kandinsky and original prints by Picasso. With 20 exhibitions a year, as well as concert and recitals, the espresso machine works almost as hard as the 40 staff.' The Sunday Times 2022
‘an art-lover’s paradise… Goldmark is jaw-dropping, crammed with originals and original prints by the likes of Graham Sutherland, Henri Matisse, John Piper, George Chapman and Le Corbusier. There are fine… bronzes by Elisabeth Frink and Frank Dobson, ceramics by Kang-hyo Lee and Clive Bowen.’ The Sunday Telegraph 2020Goldmark has stood at the heart of the English market town of Uppingham, Rutland, for nearly 50 years.
Taking stock after his success in the Kipper tie business in '60s London, Mike Goldmark relocated to Rutland in the early '70s and opened a second-hand bookshop.
The story of the bookshop is a tale unto itself, part of which was a serendipitous meeting with neo-romantic artist Rigby Graham. Graham, discovering Mike’s interest in book illustration, introduced him to the world of art.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to risk his health and livelihood, Mike chose to build an art gallery next to the bookshop and ran it with a staff of 3.
Mike Goldmark and Rigby Graham outside Goldmark Gallery
Nearly five decades on, there are now 30 staff, the bookshop sadly no longer with us but the gallery expanded into the space it occupied, as well as several surrounding buildings housing our Pot Shop, film department, and framing workshops.
The stock of art has also increased to fill every available corner. Mike’s decision to invest in art – good, real, art, made by highly intelligent people, masters of their craft who have something to tell us about the world – has paid dividends.
We are a true destination for art lovers, having more than 50,000 works in stock, representing the estates of several major 20th Century artists, as well as living artists and potters from the UK and USA, Japan, Korea and Europe.
Our sales team are second to none. Do give us a call or drop us a line if you want to chat about any of our art or pots. We are, after all, a shop; at the heart of which is a belief in openness, knowledge, and confidence in the quality of the art we offer.
We have a prolific design team, producing major catalogues for all our exhibitions. We also have the advert-free quarterly Goldmark magazine full of articles about art and pots. Most of the photography and writing is by staff, but for some of the more specialist articles, and for our occasional book publishing, we have been fortunate enough to work with some of the UK’s best respected art historians and writers.
Our film department has been in place for many years, making short films and documentaries. Indeed, two of our major art documentaries have now been nominated for British Television Awards.
Goldmark films really came to the fore during 2020-21. In March 2020 we immediately saw an appetite for entertaining, informative short films – Goldmark TV’s first broadcast was launched on March 21st. Countless numbers of people have told us how much these regular contacts from us meant to them during those difficult times.
Many of our customers become our friends, having found a comfortable space, whether in person, on the phone or online, to spend as much time as they need to find the next treasure to add to their collection.
We often hear that we are ‘the best art gallery in the UK outside of London’ (in reality, the last 3 words are probably unnecessary).
