The Gallery at Sketch by India Mahdavi

Location: London, United KingdomType: Restaurant InteriorYear: 2022Architect: India Mahdavi + Yinka ShonibarePhotographer: Edmund Dabney

The Gallery at Sketch by India Mahdavi and Yinka Shonibare in London

The Gallery at Sketch is the best-known dining room at Sketch, the restaurant and art venue at 9 Conduit Street in London’s Mayfair, and in March 2022 it was reimagined as a restaurant interior conceived by the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare and the architect and designer India Mahdavi. Marking Sketch’s 20th year, the project replaced the famous pale pink room with a warm, golden setting of copper walls and sunshine-yellow upholstery, created as a backdrop for Shonibare’s installation of site-specific artworks, Modern Magic.

Tall view of the Gallery at Sketch beneath its glazed lantern skylight, a herringbone floor leading between yellow tub chairs and tables to the bar, with a white globe lamp and a pink raffia mask on the copper wall

Sketch, a Mayfair townhouse and its famous pink room

Sketch was opened in 2003 by Mourad Mazouz in a converted 18th-century townhouse on Conduit Street, a Grade II* listed building designed by James Wyatt in 1779. The Gallery is one of several rooms in the house, which also include the Lecture Room & Library, the Glade, the Parlour and the East Bar, and it has long hosted a programme of artist collaborations that has included the Turner Prize nominee David Shrigley and the Turner Prize winner Martin Creed. In 2014 Mahdavi dressed the room in pale pink as a soothing foil to Shrigley’s drawings, a scheme that became an Instagram favourite and stayed for eight years instead of the two initially planned.

Framed Yinka Shonibare quilt of a stylised mask above a quilted yellow banquette at the Gallery at Sketch, beside a round woven wall light, with brass table lamps and coupe glasses on the white tables

Warmth instead of a new colour

Invited back by Mazouz, Mahdavi found it daunting to follow her own success. ’The Gallery at Sketch has been linked to the colour pink for such a long time that it was very challenging for me to overcome this success,’ she said. ’Yinka’s artwork was a real inspiration and enticed me to work differently.’ Rather than swapping one colour for another, she let texture and warmth lead: ’If someone asks me what Sketch’s new color is, I tell them it’s warm. It’s not about color, it’s about warmth.’

Close view of curved tub chairs upholstered in textured yellow raffia fabric at the Gallery at Sketch, set around a white-clothed table with a brass lamp and glassware

Copper walls, a Mandarine au Lait ceiling and yellow banquettes

The walls are lined with metallic copper wallpaper by de Gournay, chosen to make the room radiate, and the ceiling is painted in Mandarine au Lait, a shade Mahdavi created for her Flowers colour range for Mériguet-Carrère. New custom-made banquettes and cocooning tub chairs are covered in yellow fabrics and leather, ’the colour of sun and happiness’ in Mahdavi’s words, the room is bathed in soft golden light, and a chevron-patterned floor runs between the dining islands. ’It was my way of helping Yinka take over the room without interfering with his work,’ she said.

Bar at the Gallery at Sketch with yellow-upholstered stools along a gold counter, a carved figure sculpture, a pink raffia mask on the copper wall and a framed mask quilt above the dining room

Senegalese raffia and Ghanaian woven wall lights

Mahdavi invited African craftspeople to make pieces for the room. The subtly varied yellows of the upholstery carry patterns of woven raffia chosen from the collection of the Dakar-based textile designer Aissa Dione and specially woven for the project in Senegal, while the handmade wall lights are by Inès Bressand, who works with basket weavers in Ghana. ’These are elements that have allowed me to extend Yinka’s artistic exploration of culture and identity and bring a warm feel of Africa to the space and furnishings,’ Mahdavi said.

Corner of the Gallery at Sketch by the bar, a carved mask with a long pink raffia fringe on the copper wall above a yellow counter, tub chairs on a chevron-patterned floor beside a timber door

Yinka Shonibare's Modern Magic

Shonibare’s Modern Magic anchors the room: a series of hand-painted masks carved from wood and framed quilts, made with appliqué and embroidery on richly coloured textiles, that replicate African masks found in Pablo Picasso’s collection. ’Picasso was interested in appropriating from another culture and I also appropriate from European ethnic art,’ Shonibare told Dezeen. ’Cultural appropriation can be a two-way street.’ Afternoon tea and dinner are served on new ceramic tableware that Shonibare designed for the Gallery, made by the British company Caverswall and dressed in a diamond pattern that nods to the Yoruba trickster figure in his work.

From the pink era to a room of togetherness

For Mahdavi the change also marks a shift in mood. ’I really believe that the pink room belonged to the pre-Covid era,’ she said, describing it as carefree, while ’the new Gallery at Sketch has more depth, the textures imply the feeling of togetherness.’ A replica model of the pink Gallery, made by Mahdavi, is displayed to commemorate the earlier design. ’A restaurant is not only an image,’ she said. ’It’s something that you live in.’

Team and credits

The Gallery at Sketch was reimagined by India Mahdavi with artworks by Yinka Shonibare, at the invitation of Sketch founder Mourad Mazouz, with copper wallpaper by de Gournay, textiles by Aissa Dione, wall lights by Inès Bressand and tableware by Caverswall. It joins other richly detailed London interiors on Archtene such as Raffles London at The OWO and The Painted Hall. The photographs are by Edmund Dabney.