LEICESTER GALLERIES

1902 - 1975

Leicester Galleries were established in 1902 off Leicester Square, London, by brothers Wilfred Lawrence Phillips (1877-1926) and Cecil Lawrence Phillips (1880-1951) and the following year Ernest George Brown (1852-1915), formerly manager of the Fine Art Society, joined the organisation, and they became Ernest Brown and Phillips Ltd, who operated as the Leicester Galleries. After the death of Ernest Brown, the Galleries were directed his son Oliver Gustave Frank Brown (1885-1966) and ran important exhibitions of modern French and British painting from the time of John Lavery (1856-1941) to that of Henry Spencer Moore (1898-1986), Charles Robert Owen Medley (1905-1994) and Mark Gertler (1891-1939). Their summer exhibitions became an important feature of their annual calendar of events and during their long existence over 1,400 exhibitions of paintings, watercolours, drawings, sculpture, and prints were staged. Every exhibition was accompanied with a catalogue, many with prefaces by prominent writers. Exhibitors included Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), David Garshen Bomberg (1890-1957) and Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889-1946) and such was the fame of the gallery that Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881-1973) and Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (1869-1954) were all given their first British solo exhibitions at the Galleries. The gallery moved from its original premises and in 1963 moved to 4 Audley Square and in 1968 to 22 Cork Street. The last exhibition held under the auspices of Ernest Brown and Phillips Ltd., Leicester Galleries was held in July 1975. The name Leicester Galleries was acquired in 1984 by London art dealer Peter John Nahum (1947-) who trades from premises in Mayfair as Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries, 5 Bloomsbury Square, London.




Works by This Artist