The Financial Times previews PAD, the Pavilion of Art & Design, the fair that is quickly becoming the adult supervision during Frieze week. With the addition of Eykyn MacLean and Dayan Luxembourg, the fair has become a top tier venue on the international secondary market circuit:

Due to restrictions on the size of the marquee, PAD cannot expand further but Custot has no doubt that its diminutive proportions are a unique selling point. “Because it is a small fair, we talk to each other and buy from each other. It is like a little club.”

Indeed, in many ways PAD feels like Frieze’s elegant, older sister. The latter specialises in art, much of it installation, film and photography, at its most challenging and edgy. Although stimulating, much of this work sits uneasily in the homes of all but those with the most avant-garde taste.

PAD, by contrast, proffers art of a scale and sensibility to be in synergy with less outré sitting-rooms. This year’s highlights include, from the Spanish gallery Manuel Barbié, Jean Arp’s original plaster model for the sculpture “Coquille Crystal”, which was subsequently realised by his assistants; a 1944 india ink drawing by Jean Dubuffet from Galerie Natalie Seroussi in Paris, exhibiting for the first time this year; Bruton Street gallery E&R Cyzer Art presents a late Chagall oil painting “Les Amants au Cirque” (c1980), which has been in the same private hands since it was bought from the artist; while London photography gallery Michael Hoppen offers photographs that have been inked, painted or collaged on by the likes of Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Guy Bourdin.

A Chagall with that Chair? (Financial Times)