Buying, Selling, and Curating At Smedley Fine Art

Nestled between Master Cobbler and Waterstones on 99 Market Street, you might have noticed a new opening: Smedley Fine Art. While the ‘old-fashioned’ lettering that transports you back to an Edwardian Britain might not look amiss in our little town, the story behind the shopfront might surprise you. 

There’s something slightly surreal about walking into a fine art gallery, in a location as coveted as Market Street, and being greeted by someone you could just as easily be sitting next to during a lecture. George Smedley, a third-year History of Art and Medieval History student, is the man behind this new addition to our town.

While it’s Smedley’s name that sits above the door, this isn't a solo enterprise. The gallery is the latest, and arguably, most exciting venture of the McEwington-Sexton-Smedley trio who founded their namesake business in 2022.

The inspiration to set up a business dealing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British art came after a group trip to an Eric Ravilious exhibition during A-level revision. “We were lucky enough to do a couple of exhibitions at school. We were studying a lot of history, and we enjoyed curating stuff, so we wanted to find a way to make some money from that,” Smedley explained. Although Smedley admits he’s always been interested in the art world, often visiting exhibitions at museums or galleries, it was the “three of us going together that really did it.”

The birth of the business, however, wasn’t quite as glamorous as a shiny new shopfront in the heart of St Andrews. In fact, it was “incredibly low level” with the trio initially buying most of their stock on eBay before putting it on Instagram with the price in the caption, urging people to DM them.

After the launch of the Instagram account in 2022, the trio started selling art at various vintage and antiques fairs in spring and summer 2023. “Two of us took a gap year,” Smedley told me.“During that year we did quite a few fairs, in Oxford and Cambridge, three or four in that initial year,” he explained. They were general vintage or retro fairs and the audience wasn’t necessarily coming for art, but they were interested in vintage things, which translated into an interest in art from that period. “We didn’t have the money to go to proper art fairs, so we had to work our way into things that would work for us.” 

And work it did — going to the fairs is how they met the man who would later give them access to a London office space where they could host their own exhibitions. Although they were able to use the office, owned by an architectural practice, free of charge, running the exhibitions wasn’t an easy task. 

They had to produce professional-grade catalogues themselves, executing everything from formatting and design to printing, photography, and text, all in-house. “It was a progression from being seventeen or eighteen writing history essays for an exam to doing something more proper, a printed book presented publicly in an exhibition,” said Smedley, describing the jump.

For the exhibitions, McEwington-Sexton-Smedley underwent an eight- or nine-month process of buying artworks, preparing and framing them, followed by a couple of months writing and preparing the catalogue. 

To generate more money in between exhibitions, Smedley took to South Street, selling art at the monthly market — his first time “properly doing something” in St Andrews. It’s also when he had his ’eureka!’ moment, realising “there’s quite a market here to sell things.”

In the penultimate or final years of university, students are always scrabbling to secure graduate jobs, internships, or anything. When asked about how he sees his venture fitting in with more traditional routes, Smedley explained that since two of them study history-related subjects at university, dealing in art is useful and almost acts as work experience. 

“It’s very hard to get internships or placements in this industry, so part of it was generating our own experience,” he explained. Outwith upskilling their CVs, “it’s also a lot of fun, regardless of the level we were doing things at,” Smedley said.

While securing a student house in St Andrews is no mean feat, Smedley makes the process of leasing a commercial property sound somewhat smooth. “This place happened because I was talking to the shop owner one day and he said he might be looking to give away the lease for a year,” he explained. “That progressed over the winter and now here I am.”

In a town like St Andrews, where it feels like most people are living off the Bank of Mum and Dad — or Grandma and Grandad, in the case of generational wealth — you would be forgiven for assuming the trio had a helping hand. Smedley was transparent, however, explaining that capital has always been the limiting factor. “If you had a million pounds you could scale a lot faster. But we started buying things for £20 or £30 and building up from there,” he explained.

They’ve also been fortunate to have works on consignment and loan for exhibitions. “Having a good website and good social media presence gives credibility, even as twenty or 21-year-olds trying to operate in this space,” Smedley said.

As for the artwork itself, Smedley agrees that everyone has their own interpretation of artworks. “Obviously you can suggest meaning, but ultimately, the client has to be happy with it in their house. That’s why the gallery looks the way it does [with] natural soft lighting. It looks more domestic. Art lives in people’s homes, not just in galleries.”

Although it’s not as flashy as London, Smedley believes that St Andrews has optimal conditions for small independent businesses. “There’s a great market of students who might buy something as a graduation present. There are locals. There’s [the] tourist trade and holiday homeowners.” 

While students may occasionally joke that the three streets can start feeling suffocatingly small at times, there are undeniable perks that come with living in a wee town. “You get to know people very quickly here, even outside the University bubble. There’s a sense of community. It’s also cheaper than Edinburgh or London. I wouldn’t be able to get a space like this in central London.”

And of course, there’s the matter of Smedley’s degree — how does he manage it all? As someone who’s not the greatest fan of the library, he opts to “work from here rather than the library. I’m still sitting on my laptop doing readings and coursework, just also ready to sell art.”

It might feel surreal that a student who has to go through the same academic slog as you is sitting with their work, gracefully poised over an antique-looking wooden desk, all while you’re fighting for seats in the library. You’ll be glad to know, however, that Smedley hasn’t let his success turn him into a snob.  “It still hasn’t really settled in. I don’t think it will until I’m sat here hungover from the pub and people have been coming in buying stuff.”

Photos by Timothee Ngo