LONDON GALLERY
Noel Evelyn, née Hughes, Lady Norton (1891-1972), known as Peter, and her cousin Marguerita 'Rita' Strettell established The London Gallery at 28 Cork Street, London in September 1936. It was initially a pioneering showcase for Bauhaus and Constructivist artists, and they were supported by the guidance of Marcel Breuer (1902-1981), known to them affectionately as Lajkó, before he emigrated to USA. By 1938 she had sold the Gallery to [Sir] Roland Algernon Penrose (1900-1984), who had organised the International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries in 1936. He ran it with the Belgian artist and writer Édouard Léon Théodore Mesens (1903-1971), who also wrote the gallery's publication 'The London Bulletin' (1938-1940), assisted by [Frank] Humphrey [Sinkler] Jennings (1901-1950). The gallery became a centre for Surrealism in England exhibiting the work by the leading European Surrealists including Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters, and Yves Tanguy, although an exhibition entitled Living Art in England, included non-Surrealist work by artists such as Mondrian and Oskar Kokoschka. The gallery was closed during the Second World War and after re-opening in 1946, survived until the early 1950s.