Crouch steps into St James’s

Almost a year to the day after setting up on his own, antiquarian book and maps dealer Daniel Crouch opens a gallery in the heart of London’s St James’s. After a number of years working for the London books specialist Bernard Shapero, 37 year-old Daniel made his debut as an independent dealer last September in New York at the Haughtons’ International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show.

This was followed by a pre-Christmas exhibition at Apter-Fredericks’ Fulham Road showrooms and so far this year he has shown at both TEFAF Maastricht and Masterpiece. Up to now, Daniel has worked with his partner Nick Trimming out of an office in Oxford, but has always hankered after a high-profile London gallery. He has found just that with the opening next week of Daniel Crouch Rare Books at 4 Bury Street, SW1.

Daniel is the latest of a host of dealers who have moved into St James’s in the past couple of years, but a by-appointment gallery on the second floor was not for him. He told me last week: “I like shops and I need a show window, after all I started working in a shop at the age of 16.” And he is especially delighted to be in St James’s, now the major art dealing centre of the capital as more and more of the long-established art dealing centres like Bond Street and Chelsea succumb to the big money of fashion shops and global chains like Starbucks, who are the only people who can cope with the spiralling rents an rates.

And there is an added bonus for the specialist in antique atlases, maps and sea charts. “I have been searching for a suitable London gallery and this is perfect, it is just round the corner from all my friends,” says Daniel.