CARFAX GALLERY

1898 - c.1921

Carfax Gallery, originally known as Carfax and Co., was founded in 1898 in Ryder Street, Mayfair but by 1906 it had changed locations to nearby Bury Street. The founders of the gallery were William Rothenstein (29 January 1872–14 February 1945) , artist, teacher, and energetic art social worker later Head of the Royal College of Art and John Fothergill (27 February 1876–26 August 1957), an eccentric innkeeper, entrepreneur, and author. In 1901 Robert Baldwin Ross (25 May 1869–5 October 1918), with the help of William More Adey (22 July 1858–29 January 1942) and Arthur Bellamy Clifton (16 June 1863–2 October 1932) took over the management of the gallery. Ross left the gallery in 1908, and Arthur Bellamy Clifton, who was married to Madeline Fiennes-Clinton Knox (25 July 1890-27 January 1975), assumed control. The Carfax represented a successful attempt to exhibit and sell the work of unknown artists whose work was traditionally shunned by the Royal Academy. The Society of Painters in Tempera held their first exhibition at the Carfax in 1905 and they championed the Camden Town Group who held their first exhibition at the Carfax in 1911. During its first ten years, it showed many artists' works including contemporary British and Colonial artists, Charles William Conder (24 October 1868–9 February 1909), Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn (9 October 1870–11 May 1951), Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885–8 May 1978), William Newenham Montague Orpen (27 November 1878–29 September 1931), Augustus John (4 January 1878-31 October 1961) and his sister Gwen John (16 July 1876–18 September 1939), John Singer Sargent (12 January 1856–15 April 1925), Philip Wilson Steer, Alfred Ιmile Lιopold Stevens (11 May 1823–24 August 1906) and Ethelbert White (26 February 1891-5 March 1972) who held his first solo show at the Carfax in 1921. The last advertised exhibition noted is at the Paterson & Carfax Gallery, Old Bond Street in March 1921 of 'Flower Paintings' of Hilda Trevelyan (1878–1958). Other Suffolk artists who exhibited at the Carfax include Muirhead Bone and Florence Kate Kingsford.