ABBEY GALLERY
Abbey Gallery at 2 Victoria Street, Westminster, London, originally the trading arm of W. R. Deighton & Sons who were originally established in the closing years of the 19th century as fine art dealers and publishers. William Robert Deighton (1845-1932) from Greenwich then in Kent began his career as a pawnbroker's assistant but in but in the 1881 census he is listed as an art dealer. In 1905 he published his 'Illustrated Catalogue of Publications Issued by W R Deighton and Sons Ltd, Fine Art Publishers and Dealers, Frame Makers' but the exact date that he established his gallery has not yet been determined, his son Wilfred Victor Deighton (1888-1959) also worked with him in the business. The gallery did champion Anthony Gross and sponsored the future Royal Academician to travel around Europe and North Africa sending back to London paintings, drawings and etchings which resulted in Gross having his first solo London exhibition in 1924. Other exhibiting artists included were Winifred Austen, Sir Henry George Rushbury, Leonard Squirrell, and Sidney Tushingham, William Lionel Wyllie. Australian artists Sydney Long, Lionel Lindsay, Henri Van Raalte, Tom (Thomas) Friedensen, Sydney Ure Smith, A.B. (Archibald Bertram) Webb, Norman Lindsay exhibited in 1928 and the Pastel Society held their 1929 exhibition at the Gallery. The gallery ceased to trade around 1930 and the company was struck off in 1933.