Jeffrey "Jeff" Salmon (born 1953) is a British businessman and an

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationshi ...

both through his own companies and on the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

programme, ''

Four Rooms ''Four Rooms'' is a 1995 American anthology farce black comedy film co-written and co-directed by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino, loosely based on the adult short fiction writings of Roald Dahl. The s ...

''. Salmon lists amongst his clients,

Kate Moss Katherine Ann Moss (born 16 January 1974) is a British model. Arriving at the end of the "supermodel era", Moss rose to fame in the early 1990s as part of the heroin chic fashion trend. Her collaborations with Calvin Klein brought her to fas ...

Lily Allen Lily Rose Beatrice Allen (born 2 May 1985) is an English singer-songwriter and actress. She is the daughter of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. Her music career began in 2005 when she made some of her vocal recordings publi ...

Uma Thurman Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29, 1970) is an American actress and former model. She has performed in a variety of films, from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action films. Following her appearances on the December 1985 an ...

and U2 guitarist

Adam Clayton Adam Charles Clayton (born 13 March 1960) is an English-born Irish musician who is the bass guitarist of the rock band U2. He has resided in County Dublin, Ireland since his family moved to Malahide in 1965, when he was five years old. Cla ...

Background

Originally from

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

, Salmon worked for

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

between 1970 and 1977. Aged 24, he set up his own business specialising in

art nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

and

art-deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the United ...

. Dealing in mainly in mid-20th-century design he owns businesses, based in

Marylebone Marylebone (usually , also , ) is a district in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, forms its southern boundary. An Civil parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish and latterly a ...

, London. They include ''Decoratum'', which encompasses the two largest 20th-century furniture and design galleries in London. It was listed by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' newspaper as one of the most favourite shops in

west London West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary. The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: North London ...

. Salmon also runs a number of other companies in areas such as health care, air conditioning and facilities for people with disabilities as well as owning the rights to ''

His Excellency Excellency is an honorific style (manner of address), style given to certain high-level officers of a sovereign state, officials of an international organization, or members of an aristocracy. Once entitled to the title "Excellency", the holder ...

'', a

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...

style opera. Salmon lives with his partner Lucia and has four children. His daughter Polly records music under the name

GFOTY Polly-Louisa Salmon (born 19 July 1990), better known by her stage name GFOTY, an abbreviation of Girlfriend of the Year, is a British pop singer. From 2013 to 2018, she released music through the PC Music label. She now independently releases ...

Television

In 2010, Salmon was picked as one of the four dealers to appear in ''

'' after a

researcher visited his gallery. The programme sees the dealers attempt to buy extraordinary and unique items from members of the public. The show began airing in 2011, although Salmon left the show after the second series in 2012. He returned two years later (in 2014) for the fourth series of the show.

Companies

Decoratum

Dealing with vintage furniture and lighting "only by appointment" from a large warehouse in Wembley whilst running other businesses and exhibiting at various large London Art and Antique Fairs, Salmon opened Decoratum in 2005, a gallery space covering almost 5000 square feet of floor space in the basement of the world-famous Alfie's Antiques Market in a Church Street, in London's fashionable Marylebone District. The gallery was made up of 14 different spaces and room settings. Salmon closed the gallery in 2010 to replace it with the street level gallery also called Decoratum. The gallery often hosts exhibitions of contemporary designers. Salmon has been often quoted on the philosophy behind Decoratum: "We won't buy a piece just because we think there may be a profit in it. We will only buy a piece if we love it enough to be willing to have it on display in our own homes should it fail to sell."

Cucumberman and The Air Conditioning Company

In 1988 Salmon set up a business renting portable air conditioning units to offices. The company was christened Cucumberman by Salmon's then 6-year-old son. A series of advertisements featuring Cucumberman as a super hero were aired each summer on radio stations across London and south east England. Salmon wrote and performed these, often singing and crying out the Cucumberman catchphrase "wooosh!". In summer 2000, the company also entered the Fixed Installation Market for air conditioning systems.

Salmon Assessors - Insurance Assessors

Following damage sustained to a large shipment of art to New York in the early 1980s, Salmon successfully negotiated his own insurance claim. It became the foundation for a new business negotiating claims as an independent loss assessor on behalf of others, irrespective of their profession and including domestic claims.

Rollaramp (UK)

UK hire and sales of modular wheelchair access system, Rollaramp, is also a company within Salmon's The Salmon Group.

Fishfinger

In December 2013 Salmon created a new creative media agency called Fishfinger.

Mediatus

In February 2015 Salmon created a new mediation company called Mediatus.

Rotai UK

In July 2022 Salmon created a new massage chair company called Rotai UK.

Writing

Salmon became a blogger for Huffington Post in August 2014, where he writes on matters to do with his businesses and wider society. Salmon joined the UK business magazine Business Matters as a columnist in August 2013.