PORTAL GALLERY
Portal Painters started life as Portal Gallery in 1959 in Mayfair’s Grafton Street. Its founders Eric Lister (1926–1988) and Lionel Levy (1927–2016) championed the figurative and the quirky in painting and the gallery became well known for exhibiting the work of self-taught, sometimes known as naďve, painters of whom James Lloyd (1905-1974) was the best known. Over the years the gallery’s unpretentious attitude and its very special group of painters have made Portal internationally famous. Throughout its existence Portal Painters has kept itself slightly apart from the fads and fashions of the art world. Their artists combine technical skill with great imagination and, although each painter has their own unique style, under the Portal banner they come together to form a coherent ‘school’ of painting. Jess Wilder (1953-), who has an art history degree from the University of East Anglia and spent a year spent working at the Galerie de Seine, 51 Rue de Seine, Paris now runs Portal Painters, exhibiting at all the major London Art Fairs including the London Art Fair at The Business Design Centre in Islington in January, the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea in March and the Association of Art & Antiques Dealers (LAPADA) Fair in September. Suffolk artists who have exhibited with the Portal include Beryl Cook, Mark Copeland and Jane Lewis.
Website: https://portalpainters.co.uk