Austrian blue-chip gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac is said to have set his eyes on a handsome space in London’s Mayfair district where he plans to open his first London branch.
Ropac, who already has two galleries in Salzburg and two in Paris—including a vast space in Pantin—was reportedly looking to set up shop on Dover street in what is currently a sophisticated antiques gallery called Mallett.
According to the Evening Standard, the price tag on the lease in the upscale address is a whopping £2.5 million (about $3.6 million).
A spokesman for the gallery confirmed to artnet News that Ropac is looking at spaces in London, but didn’t reveal any specific details as to the exact venue, or expected date for the opening.
If Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac—which represents a heavy-hitting roster of artists, including Georg Baselitz, Tony Cragg, Alex Katz, and the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation—landed in Mayfair, it would consolidate the affluent London district as the first choice for any self-respecting blue-chip gallery.
Indeed, some of Ropac’s prospective neighbors would include David Zwirner, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery, Blain|Southern, Simon Lee, and Marlborough Gallery, to name but a few.