What To Expect At Frieze London & Masters 2026

Since 2003, London’s Frieze art fair has made October the most exciting month in the art market, with more shows, auction viewings, exhibitions and installations than anyone, even the most dedicated art lover, could possibly do in a week. Frieze, returning 14–18 October 2026, will host a staggering 60,000 people in London’s Regent’s Park. It seems that October has become the art equivalent of a magazine’s September issue: it’s the month when artists want to be shown and galleries put their best feet forward to take advantage of collectors visiting London from all over the world.

Lisson Gallery, Frieze London 2025. (Linda Nylind/Frieze)

The C&TH Guide To Frieze 2026

Frieze London is an annual contemporary art fair held in London’s Regent’s Park, first held in 2003. Taking over the park from Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18 October, it takes the form of a humongous marquee filled with art curators, dealers and visitors aplenty.

One of the world’s most influential contemporary art fairs, over 180 exhibiting galleries travel from across the globe every year to represent some of the world’s most exciting artists at Frieze London. Plus, visitors flock from all four corners of the world to visit across the five-day period, with attendance rising from just under 28,000 in 2003 to around 60,000 in recent years.

Frieze itself started life as a print magazine founded by Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, its subsequent expansion and success riding the wave of the Young British Artists movement and the huge new interest in British contemporary art. But today, like those now stellar artists, it’s grown up – the beer bottles in bins of East London private views have become a vintage period to look back on with nostalgia and blurry memories. Today the whole scene is shinier, with collaborations including the likes of Loewe, DeBeers and Tiffany & Co, and an atmosphere fuelled by Ruinart champagne (both at the bar, and wheeled around the fair…). There are even sister editions outside of London as Frieze spreads its global wings: in New York, Los Angeles, Abu Dhabi and Seoul.

But for all of the couture and diamonds on display, anybody serious about art is in flat shoes or trainers, covering literally miles over the course of the day. The atmosphere has always been somewhere between a circus and a carnival. The sheer quantity of art that can be seen this week, as well as the people watching, makes it a natural high even before the addition of champagne…

Frieze London 2025

What To See At Frieze London

With more than 180 international galleries presenting artists’ work, within five minutes or less you can be moving between the booths of galleries from Naples, Athens, Berlin and Los Angeles – such is the beauty of Frieze. Despite the crowds, the viewing spaces are light and airy – all white, with high ceilings and spacious rooms for the galleries, and plenty of high-end restaurants and cafés offering places to rest weary feet and feed appetites beyond the visual.

In 2026, the idea of ‘Discovery’ is a guiding tenet, putting the next generation of artists centre stage. A total of 172 galleries from 42 countries will land in Regent’s Park, however the strength of London’s own contemporary art scene is expected to shine through. The Approach, Arcadia Missa, Carlos/Ishikawa, Corvi-Mora, Thomas Dane Gallery, Edel Assanti, Emalin, Frith Street Gallery, Herald St, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, Alison Jacques, Kate MacGarry, Maureen Paley and Timothy Taylor will all present at Frieze London 2026, as will establish names including Sadie Coles HQ, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, White Cube and many, many more.

The action spills out of the park, too, with many local London art galleries and spaces taking the opportunity of the art-set being in town to host special exhibitions, talks and parties. One must-visit is Frieze’s Mayfair gallery No.9 Cork Street, where luxury travel brand Mr & Mrs Smith presents its first-ever photography exhibition this Frieze Week, curated by Brandei Estes and featuring 10 of the hottest names in contemporary photography gathered under the theme To Seek, To Find (open to the public on 16 and 17 October).

Frieze is also well-known for its roster of insightful talks, with artists, curators and other art-world professionals discussing a spectrum of topics from contemporary trends to niche historical moments in art. This year’s speakers include Grayson Perry, Es Devlin, Tim Marlow, Luke Syson, Danh Vō, Kulapat Yantrasast and Lina Ghotmeh.

Frieze Masters 2025 (Hugo Glendinning/Frieze)

And Frieze Masters…

Frieze Masters, founded in 2012, showcases art mainly from before the year 2000, giving visitors the chance to see incredible art history alongside major contemporary names at the start of their career. This fair could easily be a day out in and of itself, with serious art lovers finding it hard to tear themselves away from so many museum-quality encounters.

In 2026, the underpinning ethos is resistance against any singular art history. Instead, the circa 140 participating galleries are invited to expand how art history is researched, understood and told. As Frieze Masters’ director Emanuela Tarizzo puts it, ‘From ancient civilizations to the 20th century, the fair places rediscovery, rigorous scholarship and the expansion of the canon at the centre of the experience.’

Hailing from 30 countries and regions, Frieze Masters’ galleries (including Hauser & Wirth, Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, Annely Juda and Daniel Katz) are expected to present everything spanning ancient civilisations and Old Master paintings to sculpture and decorative arts to Asian historical art and postwar British work.

An accompanying new-for-2026 curatorial thread is Queering Modernism: Visual Languages of the 20th Century, conceived by German curator Anke Kempkes and spread across Frieze Masters.

Lullo Pampoulides, Frieze Masters 2025. (Hugo Glendinning/Frieze)

Who Is Frieze For?

Cynics that dismiss Frieze London, Masters and Sculpture as ‘rich people buying art’ miss the point. In recent years, more prominence has been given to new designs, less familiar galleries and curated spaces. With the ink virtually still wet on WME super-agent-turned-mogul Ari Emanuel’s takeover of the fair’s ownership, it’s a truly exciting moment: he has spoken powerfully with this move about the hankering so many people feel for real, offline, life. As he’s said, ‘Live events and experiences have never been more powerful. As people increasingly value experiences over things.’

It’s a hopeful narrative, and one that put even more of a spring in the step of all of those thousands of trainers streaming through the park last year, whether they’re shopping for beautiful ‘things’ or just there to soak it all up. If you want to take home a piece of Frieze without breaking the bank, there are options, too. One example is the Allied Editions booth, which showcases editions produced by museums and galleries and sells them at an affordable rate (think £30–100) to raise money for public gallery programs, making it an accessible way to add a piece of Frieze to your walls. Many other booths will sell merchandise and affordable art, a great way to introduce new artists.

Grace Schwindt, When I Remember Through You, 2025, presented by Galerie Peter Kilchmann. Frieze Sculpture 2025. (Linda Nylind/Frieze)

The best free experience without a doubt is Frieze Sculpture, with works installed against the scene-stealing beauty of Regent’s Park in autumn. With a picnic, it’s also the best family friendly part of Frieze. Now in its 14th year (and its fourth curated by Fatoş Üstek), Frieze Sculpture runs longer than the main festivals, 16 September to 1 November, meaning you can visit once the marquee has been pulled down and the art crowd has dispersed. In 2026, the work of 11 leading international artists will be sited in Regent’s Park’s historic English Gardens, themed around environmental hybridity; think blended natural and urban ecosystems, like a city park, for instance.

‘Lady in Blue’ by artist Tschabalala Self on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth in London. (Jeff Spicer/PA Media Assignments)

Beyond Frieze London, Don’t Miss…

• Tschabalala Self’s newly unveiled Fourth Plinth sculpture Lady in Blue on Trafalgar Square – a bronze ‘everywoman’ donning a vibrant lapis lazuli inspired blue dress. It comes ahead of London Sculpture Week (19-27 September 2026), and can be seen until 2028, when it will be moved to its permanent home in Fornebu, Norway.
• The special menus curated by London’s artiest restaurants. Our top pick in 2026 is Mount St. Restaurant‘s ‘Palette to Plate’, serving up art-inspired dishes throughout October in one of the city’s prettiest dining rooms. The recipes come from Manuela Wirth’s new recipe book A Cookbook for Iwan: From Studio to Stove, filled with more than 200 personal recipes from contemporary artists, curators and collectors. (Manuela and husband Iwan are the founders of Hauser & Wirth and Artfarm.)
• At 45 Park Lane, Great Women Photographers takes over the hotel’s lobby and its BAR 45, presenting 200 years of photographic history through women’s lenses, and celebrating the publication of Phaidon’s latest book. Artists on display include Nan Goldin, Tacita Dean, Cig Harvey and Marilyn Minter, from 14 September to 14 November.

If you are in town specifically for Frieze, there is also a stellar roster of major exhibitions not-to-be-missed, including:

• The ’90s: Art and Fashion at Tate Britain (8 October 2026–14 February 2027)
• The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum (10 September 2026–11 July 2027)
• Painting the French Riviera at the Royal Academy (2 October 2026–31 January 2027)
• Renoir and Love at the National Gallery (3 October 2026–31 January 2027)

Find out more at frieze.com