What we’re looking forward to seeing at Collect 2026
As Collect art fair returns to London's Somerset House, we pick out the works and galleries shaping this year’s conversation around craft and collectible design.
Now in its 22nd year, Collect art fair will return to Somerset House on February 27, and promises a curated and highly impressive display. The fair aims to showcase the work of over 400 artists and designers. ‘It’s about putting the emphasis on material-based disciplines and skills that take time to hone. All of the skills and pieces created relate to the artists’ hand,’ explains the fair's director, TF Chan (who is, incidentally, one of House & Garden's ‘New Creative Royalty’ for 2026). For TF, the aim of the fair is to elevate contemporary craft, putting it on a level pedestal with fine art. ‘We show museum quality pieces,’ he explains. ‘I want to show that there’s the same level of quality here as at a more mainstream fine art fair.’
Thanks in part to TF's vision for the fair, this year's edition will see a notable influx of international newcomers, as well as a surge of invention and a marked disregard for the expected. There’s a sense that boundaries may be not just nudged, but meaningfully reworked.
Ceramics, glass, lacquer, jewellery, furniture, textiles – it’s all here, but rarely in forms you’ve seen before. Gallery FUMI’s Kobina Adusah channels ancestral African landscapes into monumental vessels, while Bluerider ART presents delicate embroidered tributes to Taiwanese cuisine by Deng Wen Jen. Over at Mia Karlova Galerie, Vadim Kibardin transforms recycled cardboard into sculptural lighting that feels both austere and futuristic.
