1-54 London 2026

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair returns to Somerset House from 15 to 18 October 2026 for its 14th consecutive London edition and its most significant evolution to date. Alongside its contemporary programme, the fair introduces a spotlight devoted to Modernist artists from Africa and its diaspora, through curated booth presentations and a dedicated 1-54 Presents exhibition by South African-Portuguese art historian and visual studies scholar Dr. Nancy Dantas under the title West Wind.

The launch answers a wider surge of institutional attention towards African Modernism, as museums and scholars work to recover artists and movements long left on the periphery of the dominant art historical record.

Long-standing participant Loeve&Co (Paris, France) have regularly been highlighting Modern artists and will have a strong presence with Aubrey Williams, Twins Seven Seven, Guido Llinàs, Frédérique Devaux Yahi and Roland Dorcély. The Gallery of Everything (London, UK) will be presenting a solo show in tribute to Senegalese sculptor Seyni Awa Camara . ArtTalks | Kanafani Gallery brings a historical Egyptian lens, showing Modernist figures Tahia Halim, Inji Efflatoun, Zeinab Al-Saginy, Rabab Nemr and Gazbia Sirry , whose standing at home has never quite translated into international recognition.

Alongside the fair, 1-54 Presents will return with West Wind , a curated exhibition by art historian and researcher Dr. Nancy Dantas . Inspired by the 1966 song and epithet for African unity, the exhibition brings together the work of pioneering modern artists from across Africa. Further details will be unveiled in September.

“As we prepare for our 14th London edition, I have been reflecting on how differently we understand artists when we place them within the histories they helped to shape, rather than at their margins,” says Founding Director Touria El Glaoui. “West Wind allows us to look back with greater precision and to see the present differently. By bringing these generations into conversation, this edition places African artists where they belong: as authors of modern and contemporary art history.”

This vision also becomes tangible in several booths built entirely around women artists. Geneva-based GALLERY BRULHART, Gillian Jason Gallery (London, UK), O’DA Art (Lagos, Nigeria), and Rome-based Galleria Anna Marra present all-female presentations, demonstrating the undeniable impact women have had on African art from the modern and post-modern periods until today.

Together, galleries and artists across Africa and its diaspora continue to make the case that African art today has no single centre, engaging from and with geographies far beyond the continent itself and shaping today’s global conversations. Nigerian textile artist Samuel Nnorom shows with Affinity Gallery from Lagos, and Moroccan painter Amina Rezki with Loft Art Gallery from Casablanca. British-Ghanaian multidisciplinary artist Godfried Donkor is presented by Accra and London-based Gallery 1957 . October Gallery presents a group show which includes Congolese painter Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga , Beninese sculptor Romuald Hazoumè , alongside 1-54 London debutant Yacout Hamdouch ; and Franco-Algerian artist Nasreddine Bennacer shows with Paris gallery AFIKARIS . Cairo-based Gallery Misr presents Egyptian painters Souad Abdelrasoul and Gamal Elkheshen and Eclectica Contemporary from Cape Town showcases Justin Dingwall, Ebenezer Samuel Akinola and Nedia Were.

This year’s edition foregrounds artists’ individual practice with a strong showing of solo presentations: albertz benda will be presenting a solo booth by Larissa de Souza whereas Errm Art Gallery will show works by Medhat Shafik and Fabienne Levy has selected Ekene Emeka-Maduka for their fair presentation. In Situ – fabienne leclerc will show works by Beau Disundi Nzazi and Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery will spotlight Kimathi Mafafo . A focus on Tshepiso Moropa will be put on by THK Gallery and Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix will have a single artist booth with Kuamen.

New voices continue to arrive alongside galleries that have shown with 1-54 for years. 16/16, ArtTalks | Kanafani Gallery, ELLEPHANT, Fabienne Levy, Maya Art Space, Tribe Gallery all make their 1-54 London debut this year, highlighting the fair’s appeal to still function as a genuine point of entry.

Taking place across Frieze Week, Somerset House becomes the point where museums and private collectors converge on African and diaspora art, often making discoveries that go on to shape major collections and exhibitions elsewhere.

Beyond the galleries, this edition also welcomes a run of Special Projects . Nando’s patronage of contemporary Southern African art, through close partnership with Spier Arts Trust , both enables career development opportunities for visual artists and the curation of the Nando’s collection. They return to 1-54 with a presentation of work by artists Blessing Ntsikelelo Blaai, Lionel Tazvita Mbayiwa and Mellaney Roberts. The underpinning curatorial theme of our presentation for this year’s fair explores belonging – the human need to feel accepted, valued and connected – as both a challenge and a creative act.

Borderlands Art , a woman led gallery that engages artists and themes of environment and social impact, presents Our Canvas Grows From The Soil. Linking practices between Uganda and Ghana, the works are all made from the medium of barkcloth (lubugo, kyenkyen), a UNESCO listed Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage. In the display filled exclusively with barkcloth artworks, Ugandan’s Gloria Kiconco and Piloya Irene will present sculptural zines and textiles that come from forest-embedded installations. Othello De’Souza-Hartley shares his series that uses barkcloth as a canvas for photographic printing and textured painting, marking a diasporic site of connection across place and identity. These artists work against conventional painting methods and instead use barkcloth as a point of communion between contemporary social practice and ancestral material practices. The project draws on the ancient practice of harvesting bark from living trees and processing it into textile sheets while the forest remains alive. As a booth filled with these works it shows how artists’ work opens renewable artistic possibilities while also addressing love, trade, environmental harm and material liberation beyond borders.

The Midunu Institute is an Accra-based cultural organisation founded by artist, author, and cultural thinker Selassie Atadika , dedicated to preserving and advancing Africa’s culinary heritage and food systems through research, cultural practice, and craft. At 1-54 London 2026, the Institute presents Commodity / Couture, a sensory installation tracing Ghanaian cocoa from farm to finished product — and the value that disappears in between. From a £4 chocolate bar, the farmer who grew the cocoa receives about 6p. Visitors encounter the material at every register: the scent of cocoa at the threshold, field recordings of farmers inside booths sewn from cocoa sacks, and a cocoa pod cast in brass by an Ashanti artisan in Kumasi using the lost-wax method. The work asks one question: what is value at origin?

More Special Projects to be announced soon.

List of Participating Galleries (*artist list subject to change)

• 16/16 (Lagos, Nigeria) presenting a duo show with works by Bubu Ogisi and Alpha Odhiambo

• 50 Golborne (London, UK) presenting the works of Temandrota, Freya Bramble-Carter, Martin Jakaila and Mbaye Babacar Diouf

• 193 Gallery (Paris / St. Tropez / Venice, France / Italy) will be presenting works by Hassan Hajjaj, Thandiwe Muriu, Shourouk Rhaiem, Sesse Elangwe, April Bey

• Affinity Gallery (Lagos, Nigeria) with a selection of works from Samuel Nnorom, Buqaqawuli Nobakada and Joke Amusan

• AFIKARIS (Paris, France) with a presentation of Nasreddine Bennacer, Matthew Eguavoen, Eva Obodo, Ozioma Onuzulike, Géraldine Tobé and Hervé Yamguen

• albertz benda (New York / Los Angeles, USA) with a solo booth by Brazilian painter Larissa de Souza

• ArtTalks | Kanafani Galler y (Cairo, Egypt) with all female Egyptian artists Tahia Halim, Inji Efflatoun, Zeinab Al-Saginy, Rabab Nemr, Gazbia Sirry

• Eclectica Contemporary (Cape Town, South Africa) will be returning with works by Justin Dingwall, Ebenezer Samuel Akinola and Nedia Were

• ELLEPHANT (Montreal, Canada) with a booth showcasing the works of Stanley Wany and Ekow Nimako

• Errm Art Gallery (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) will be presenting works by Medhat Shafik

• Fabienne Levy (Lausanne / Geneva / Zurich, Switzerland) exhibiting the works from Nigerian painter Ekene Emeka-Maduka

• FILAFRIQUES (Geneva / Abidjan, Switzerland / Côte d’Ivoire) exhibiting the works from Nigerian painter Joseph Eze and Congolese-Romanian Fibre-artist Maliza Kiasuwa

• First Floor Gallery Harare (Harare, Zimbabwe)

• Galleria Anna Marra (Rome, Italy) presenting the works of female artists Khadija Jayi, Turiya Magadlela and Dana Zvulun

• Gallery 1957 (London / Accra, UK / Ghana) with a group presentation by five artists: Godfried Donkor, Rita Mawuena Benissan, Wonderbuhle, Freya Tewelde and Larry Amponsah

• GALLERY BRULHART (Geneva, Switzerland) showcasing an all-female booth with works by Bianca Nguema, Elsa Åkesson, Theresah Ankomah and Amy Celestina

• Gallery Misr (Cairo, Egypt) presenting Egyptian artists Souad Abdelrasoul and Gamal Elkheshen

• Gillian Jason Gallery (London, UK) returning with a group booth showing works by Ofunne Azinge, Cinthia Sifa Mulunga and Holly Rollins

• Guns & Rain (Johannesburg, South Africa)

• In Situ – fabienne leclerc (Romainville, France) with a solo show by emerging painter Beau Disundi Nzazi

• Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery (London / Berlin / West Palm Beach, UK / Germany / USA) presenting works by Kimathi Mafafo

• kumalo | turpin (Johannesburg, South Africa) showcasing the works of South African artists Katlego Tlabela, Boemo Diale, Nathaniel Sheppard III, Cameron Platter

• Larkin Durey (London, UK)

• LIS10 Gallery (Arezzo / Paris / Hong Kong, Italy / France / Hong Kong ) presenting a booth featuring sculptures and paintings by Jack Kabangu and Joël Bigaignon

• Loeve&Co (Paris, France) presenting Aubrey Williams, Twins Seven Seven, Guido Llinàs, Frédérique Devaux Yahi and Roland Dorcély

• Loft Art Gallery (Casablanca / Marrakech, Morocco) showcasing the works of James Mishio and Amina Rezki

• Maya Art Space (Beirut, Lebanon) debuting their 1-54 presence with Souad Mardam Bey, Ibrahim Khattab, Sayed Waked and Mina Nasseef

• O’DA Art (Lagos, Nigeria) presenting Nigerian artists Deborah Segun, Jonah Bulus and Mobolaji Ogunrosoye

• October Gallery (London, UK) exhibiting a group presentation of Zana Masombuka, Xanthe Somers, Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga, LR Vandy, Romuald Hazoumè, Alexis Peskine and Yacout Hamdouch

• Perve Galeria (Lisbon, Portugal)

• The Gallery of Everything (London, UK) will be presenting a solo show in tribute to Senegalese sculptor Seyni Awa Camara

• The Southern Art Hub (London, UK) is exhibiting works by Bisila Noha, Sabrina Da Silva Medeiros, Luma Nascimento, David Damoison and Kay Gasei• THK Gallery (Cape Town / Cologne, South Africa, Germany) presenting works by South African artist Tshepiso Moropa

• Tribe Gallery (Geneva, Switzerland) debuting their 1-54 presence with works by Yeanzi and Béchir Boussandel

• Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix (London, UK) presenting works by Kuamen

Press release from 1-54

Image: Bechir Boussandel. L’ombre du soleil. 2026. Acrylic on canvas. 195 x 245 cm © Mehdi Ben Temessek