A pioneering photography gallery in the UK has closed its beautiful doors after 13 years in Fitzrovia, London.
Hannah Watson is the director of Trolley Books, previously working alongside Gigi Giannuzzi until his death in 2012, which publishes a diverse range of titles presenting unique stories in photography, photojournalism and contemporary art. She co-founded the TJ Boulting gallery alongside Giannuzzi in 2011, which took its name from the landmark Grade II listed Arts and Crafts building in Fitzrovia.
Announcing the closing in an Instagram post on Valentine's Day, Watson wrote: “I chose Valentine’s Day to make the announcement because I wanted to end TJ Boulting on a positive note.
“The decision has been brewing for a while and I’ve done everything I wanted to do with the gallery: built an exciting program, worked with amazing artists, participated in art fairs, secured major museum acquisitions. Although it was a hard decision to choose to close the gallery, I feel the time is right to move on to new opportunities.”
According to The Art Newspaper, “Trolley’s early focus on stylish presentations of heavy hitting photojournalism and politically charged art came to inform the core of the programming at TJ Boulting, which was particularly known for its focus on lens-based work.
“Included in the gallery’s eight-strong, all-female roster were the Indian documentary photographer and Deutsche Borse Foundation Photography Prize nominee Poulomi Basu and the portraitist Juno Calypso, who won the 2016 British Journal of Photography International Photography Award in 2016.”
TJ Boulting was “very much a commercial gallery” but has also “functioned as a hub” for the art and photography community by hosting book launches and workshops, according to Watson. It has hired guest curators for group shows including the art critic Charlotte Jansen, whose exhibition focused on birth, while editor Lousie Wise explored the male gaze.
More recently, the gallery staged an exhibition dedicated to English artist Sarah Lucas – part of the generation of Young British Artists – where visitors who identified as women, or men dressed as women, were invited to throw an egg against a wall, creating a large abstract work.
Watson ran the gallery as the sole director after Giannuzzi’s death in 2012, and often had to decide between staging an exhibition or preparing a book. This is something that “current market conditions don’t afford you any more,” she says. “There is no breathing space. Going forward I want to free myself of those restrictions.”
Many of TJ Boulting’s artists are now without gallery representation, but Watson says she is not worried for any of them. “I consulted each of my artists before announcing the closure to the public. I am confident they will be picked up by other galleries.”
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