HEAL'S MANSARD GALLERY

1917 - ?

A good friend of Ambrose Heal, Frank Pick (1878-1941) was not only the managing director of the London Underground during the 1920s but also a passionate advocate of design. In 1915, he and Ambrose decided to found the Design and Industries Association (DIA), of which they were active members, to promote links between designers, manufacturers, and retailers. In 1917 Ambrose Heal opened the Mansard Gallery within Heal’s Tottenham Court Road store, Heal's has been at the vanguard of modem design for over two hundred years. Their first exhibition was organised by Roger Eliot Fry (1866-1934), one of the founders of the Bloomsbury Group and was a great success and the fourth-floor gallery was a well-known spot frequented by Bloomsbury group luminaries such as Virginia Woolf and Wyndham Lewis. Such was his connection to the Mansard that in 1920 Lewis used the venue to host his ‘Group X’ show, bringing together several painters and sculptors from the British Vorticist movement. The Mansard went on to exhibit the work of talented artists including Picasso, Matisse, Derain, Roger Fry, William Roberts, Claude Lovat Fraser, Mary Fedden, Wyndham Lewis, Terry Frost, Jacob Epstein and Amedeo Modigliani. Not only did individual artists show at the Mansard, but the Friday Club, Allied Artists Association and the London Group of Artists held early exhibitions there. Due to the proximity of the Slade School of Fine Art to Heal’s, Ambrose Heal (1872-1959), was a frequent visitor to the School. and he gave graduates the opportunity to exhibit their work at the Mansard Gallery in Heal's.
Website: https://www.heals.com/blog/the-mansard-gallery

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Works by This Artist