WERTHEIM GALLERY

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Wertheim Gallery was founded by Lucy Carrington Wertheim (4 April 1883-13 December 1971), née Pearson who married at Chorlton, Lancashire in 1906 Mari Paul Johan Wertheim (1879-31 March 1952), a director of Duxburys and Wertheims, textile merchants of Manchester and consul for the Netherlands, and they had three children, John Michael (born 1912), Hilary Grace (1915-1990) and Robert H. (born 1917). Lucy was a renowned commercial art gallery dealer in London 1930-1939 and in Manchester 1932-1933. Wertheim's London gallery was in Burlington Gardens in the heart of the West End and was a mecca for the serious collector. Lucy Wertheim was a modernist with a distinct taste for primitive painting and her star artists included Christopher Wood, Nano Reid, Norah McGuinness and many of the Dublin based White Stag Group. Wertheim was also the founder of the short-lived Twenties Group which only allowed artists below the age of thirty to exhibit. These included Basil Rákóczi, Barbara Hepworth, Roger Hilton, Robert Medley, Victor Pasmore, Christopher Wood, Elizabeth Rivers and Norah McGuinness who were all aged between twenty and thirty. At the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 the Wertheim Gallery closed, and the Twenties Group ceased to exist. Towards the end of her life Wertheim was cared for by artists Kathleen Irene Walne, a former employee, and her husband Frank Clifford Ward at their home in Hove. Her art collection of Modern British Pictures was sold by Phillips of Knowle, on instructions of her son Robert on 2 September 1981.