Steve Pyke: Philosophers Flowers - review

In the doorway of the gallery a 3D cardboard construction of a Rolleiflex camera by Patrick Hughes suggests the instrument used by Steve Pyke to take portraits of some of the world's great philosophers.

Having made his name here on magazine in the Eighties and Nineties, Pyke worked as a staff photographer for The New Yorker magazine from 1995. He began the Philosophers series in 1998 with a commission for the late AJ Ayer. The result typified his style and now includes more than 200 subjects. Stark black and white squares, meticulously perfect tonal prints (analogue, of course), they offer surprising openness from sometimes difficult subjects.

Pyke's famously cheeky-cockney-like character and intuitively philosophical mind clearly helped.

A grid of contact prints covering one wall offers a fascinating collage of faces that entice the viewer to seek clues to what might identify a philosopher. With recent works, he expands to soft focus and adds colour among darkly earnest expressions.

The elderly Judith Thompson stares through owl glasses into the lens and appears hugely satisfied with her life. In contrast, the philosopher of art, Arthur C Danto, casts down his face and eyes as if still holding thoughts the photographer interrupted. These portraits, he believes, "transmit, almost cinematically, a series of disclosures of its own inner being".

Until October 1 (020 7439 7766, flowersgalleries.com).