In April 2026, Michael Richardson will celebrate 40 years of running Art Space Gallery in Islington, one of the leading commercial galleries showing modern figurative and landscape-based art in London.
 
For Art Space's 25th anniversary in 2011, the critic Andrew Lambirth wrote: 'A gallery is a building in which to show art, but it is also more than that, it is a collective identity, compounded of the kind of art on show and the dealer's personality.'
 
That 'collective identity' has embraced both established and emerging artists, with an impressive roster of visiting exhibitors including Leon Kossoff, Terry Setch, Nigel Hall, Roy Oxlade, Anthony Eyton, Michael Sandle, John Wonnacott and Euan Uglow. These have all exhibited at the gallery over the years, sometimes in solo shows, sometimes in group ones. But for this special anniversary, Michael Richardson has decided to focus on four artists, cornerstones of his approach to art dealing, four artists the Gallery has represented since the 1990s, and whose work he thinks sums up the culture of Art Space.