Maybe it’s the result of continuously crossing the globe for more than 20 years. Maybe it’s just poor impulse control. Either way, we here at Mr & Mrs Smith have never been particularly great at sitting still — we get more than a little restless when we’re not doing something, somewhere, new. A glance at our résumé will give you the proof you need: we’ve published best-selling books; launched a series of CDs (remember those?); created our own hospitality awards; and just this year brought some of travel’s most interesting minds together for the inaugural Smith Sessions.
This October, that restless streak has led us to the art world. We’re making our debut at leading contemporary art fair Frieze London, with a photography exhibition celebrating artists we’ve commissioned over the last two years.
To Seek, To Find places 10 established and emerging names side by side, spanning the disciplines of travel, fashion, documentary, still life, food, landscape and more. It will be presented at Frieze’s permanent gallery space, No.9 Cork Street in Mayfair, one of London’s most important art neighbourhoods.
On paper, Smith and Frieze are natural bedfellows — our worlds already overlap among curators, critics and culturally curious travellers. But more importantly, we both champion and provide a platform for creative voices. Alongside editorial storytelling, photography has been a keystone of the Smith story, the most immediate way to translate our distinct point of view. We know that travel and culture aren’t separate conversations, and after 20 years of deciding where people should stay, we have strong opinions on what makes somewhere worth looking at, too. So we handed the reins to 10 distinctive photographers, asking them to look past the obvious travel tropes and allow their discoveries to shape our idea of a place. From India to Paris, upstate New York to Thailand, the images they’ve created are personal and true to each artist’s own visual practice.
The title of the exhibition is taken from the final line of Tennyson’s most famous poem, Ulysses: ‘To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’. The ageing Ulysses refuses to rest even at the end of his odyssey, unwilling to accept that the world he has already seen is all there is to see. It’s a sentiment the artists of To Seek, To Find understand: there’s an endless curiosity to travel, and to photography itself. The urge to look again, to reveal something unexpected, and the suspicion that there is always more to discover.
Frieze No.9 Cork Street. Photo: Maris Mezulis. Courtesy of Frieze.
To Seek, To Find’s line-up brings some of photography’s most established names into conversation with a new generation of image-makers. Photographic giants Tina Barney and the late Martin Parr — who contributed an exclusive, previously unseen work made in April 2025 — sit alongside Axel Aurejac, Chayanee Chomsaengchun, Paolo Di Lucente, Kalpesh Lathigra, Dougal MacArthur, Stanislas Motz-Neidhart, Hannah Rose and Isabelle Young.
The job of honing such a roster fell to curator Brandei Estes. Previously the Head of Photographs at Sotheby’s, now the Acting Senior Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery and a member of Photo London’s Curatorial Board, what she doesn’t know about photography is frankly not worth knowing.
‘What interested me was the opportunity to explore place through the eyes of artists rather than through a conventional travel lens,’ shares Estes about the project. ‘The resulting works demonstrate how photography can transform the experience of travel into something with lasting cultural resonance, encouraging viewers to look at both place and image-making in a different way.’
Following a private preview on 15 October, To Seek, To Find opens to the public on 16 and 17 October as part of the official Frieze Week programme. For two days, No.9 Cork Street will put Smith in the thick of a London alive with artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers from around the world.
The exhibition works will be available to purchase as artist-editioned prints during the exhibition run, and on request for a limited time afterwards by emailing [email protected]. But if you’re not in town for the Fair, a selection of the works will be available as limited-edition prints on mrandmrssmith.com.
Importantly, all profits from the gallery and online sales will be donated to Mr & Mrs Smith’s charity partner, the Human Dignity Trust, supporting the organisation’s work defending the rights of LGBTQ+ people around the world through strategic litigation and legislative reform.
So, consider this your invitation to join us at To Seek, To Find, and see what more than 20 years of travelling, discovering and not sitting still have led to.
To Seek, To Find will be open to the public at No.9 Cork Street in Mayfair, London, from 16–17 October 2026 (free admission; no booking required. Open 10am–6pm both days)
Following the exhibition, a selection of prints will be available to buy for a limited time only here. All proceeds will go towards the work of our charity partner, the Human Dignity Trust