PICCADILLY GALLERY

1953 - 2007

Founded as the Godfrey Pilkington Gallery in 1953 by husband-and-wife (Richard) Godfrey Pilkington (1918-2007) and Evelyn Edith née Vincent (1929-2011) and opened in the Piccadilly Arcade but by May of that year had changed its name to the Piccadilly Gallery and in 1956 Christabel Rawdon Briggs (20 May 1933-) joined them. They championed the works of neglected figurative artists, Art Nouveau and 19th and 20th-century Symbolism. In 1954 the Piccadilly Gallery moved to 16a Cork Street, Mayfair and in 1978, it moved next door to 16 Cork Street, and when the lease ran out in 1999, the gallery moved to a basement at 43 Dover Street. They promoted the artists Adrian Berg (1929-2011) as well as Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (1872-1956), Gwendoline Mary John (1876-1939), William Patrick Roberts (1895–1980) and Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (1882-1940) as well as hosting major exhibitions of Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), Egon Schiele (1890-1918) and the German New Objectivity (in German: Neue Sachlichkeit) movement. Godfrey Pilkington became editor of 'Picture and Prints' Magazine, master of the Fine Art Trade Guild, chairman of the Society of London Art Dealers and a governor of Wimbledon School of Art. The gallery closed in March 2007 and Godfrey Pilkington died on 8 July 2007 from injuries received after being knocked down in the Hyde Park underpass being survived by his widow, Eve, two sons and two daughters. His widow set up a short-lived office in the Pilkingtons’ garage in 45 Barons Court Road in West Kensington although Piccadilly Gallery Ltd was still incorporarted in 2024 with the four Pilkington children as directors. Christabel Rawdon Briggs married in 1989 Edward Pool (1922-2013), a former husband of sculptor Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993). Suffolk artists who exhibited with the Piccadilly Gallery include Ken Back, George Chapman, Peter Coker, Peter Fraser Davis, Rosemary Elliott, Henry Holzer, Diana Howard, John Morley, Margot Noyes, Dale Pring-MacSweeney, John Reay, John Ridgewell, Harry Webster, William Powell Wilkins and Laetitia Yhap.

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Works by This Artist