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The Redfern Gallery (established 1923) is one of the oldest British art galleries, specialising in contemporary British art. The gallery was founded by Arthur Knyvett-Lee and Anthony Maxtone Graham on the top floor of Redfern House, 27 Old Bond Street, London, as an artists' cooperative. In 1936 the gallery moved to 20 Cork Street, London.
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In 1925, Rex Nan Kivell joined the Redfern Gallery, becoming its managing director in 1931, and encouraging many young artists during his years at the gallery. The 1930s saw a turn towards work by French artists, such as František Kupka, Igor Mitoraj, Toulouse Lautrec, and Marie Laurencin. Nan Kivell began to juxtapose these with the British artists already represented by the gallery. In 1939, Harry Tatlock Miller arrived at the Redfern, having moved to England from Australia with his partner, Loudon Sainthill. A year later, the gallery began a lasting partnership with The Contemporary Art Society. After the upheaval of World War II, Peter Cochrane returned from military service and began to promote emerging talents, including St Ives artists - Alan Reynolds, Victor Pasmore, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Roger Hilton, and Bryan Wynter. The 1950s saw the Redfern receive considerable critical and artistic interest as it promoted radical abstract art, a period that also saw the gallery's production of detailed and comprehensive catalogues, with essays by luminaries such as Clive Bell and Roger Fry. In the 1960s, the Redfern became part of a social set along Cork Street,the meeting point for characters such as a young David Hockney and fashion designer Ossie Clark, as well as the watercolourist Patrick Procktor, who became a important social and artistic friend of the Redfern Gallery until his death, in 2003. In the 1970s, the artists Norman Stevens and William Delafield Cook joined the Redfern's stable. In 1982, Tatlock Miller left the gallery, leaving Maggie Thornton, John Synge, and Gordon Samuel to run the Redfern. The 1980s saw the Redfern develop an interest in the intersection between design and art, culminating in Design in 1987, as well as exhibitions in America and Hong Kong. In the 2000s, the gallery held several significant retrospectives, and came to represent the estates of Margaret Mellis and Francis Davison.
The Redfern Gallery is notable for being one of the only galleries in London to receive the benefit of skylights. Its directors are Richard Gault and Richard Selby.
Early exhibitions
In 1924 the gallery displayed the student work of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, and in 1929, the first exhibition of British linocuts featuring work by Cyril Edward Power, Sybil Andrews, and Claude Flight. It also showed works by Christopher Wood (brought to the Redfern by Peter Cochrane), Eileen Agar, Graham Sutherland and Paul Nash, amongst others, giving some their first exhibitions.
In 1942, the Redfern held a significant exhibition by Michael Rothenstein and Eileen Agar. In 1946, in collaboration with the British Ministry of Education and the Italian Ministry of Public Instruction, the Redfern organised an exhibition of Contemporary Italian Painting, presenting the work of Amedeo Modigliani, Renato Guttuso, Carlo Levi, Giorgio Morandi, and the Futurists Carlo Carrà and Gino Severini.
In 1953, the gallery showed the work of Russian émigré artists Chaïm Soutine and Moïse Kisling. As Abstract Expressionism rose in America, its impact was demonstrated by the 1957 exhibition Metavisual, Tachiste and Abstract Painting in England to-day, initially held at the Redfern Gallery, later moving to Paris.
In the 1960s, the Redfern began to show Patrick Procktor, whose estate continues to be represented by the Redfern Gallery. His first solo show at the gallery was held in 1963, with all of the works selling before it opened. In the same year, David Oxtoby also had his first solo show at the Redfern, and, likewise, continues to be represented by the gallery.
The 1970s opened with two important shows that illustrated contemporary movements in European art through the work of German artists such as Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, and Paul Wunderlich, and British sculptors including Nigel Hall, Bryan Kneale, and Kenneth Armitage. In 1973, a Loudon Sainthill Memorial exhibition was organised in association with David Jones’ Art Gallery in Sydney, showing theatre and costume designs that the artist had produced for The Four Musketeers, The Canterbury Tales, and The Merchant of Venice.
In 1986, an important exhibition of Michael Rothenstein’s prints of the 1950s and ‘60s furthered Redfern’s already established authority in the promotion of printmaking.
Recent exhibitions
The 1990s opened with a Patrick Procktor exhibition, a Roger Hilton solo show, and William Gear’s 75th Birthday Exhibition. Leon Underwood’s Centenary exhibition took place at the Redfern in March 1991, and gathered paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints of his Mexican period and of the following years. An Antoni Tàpies exhibition took place at the Redfern in February 1992, where his latest prints were shown alongside Karl Weschke’s early drawings. Later this year, Valerie Thornton's memorial exhibition was held.
Notable exhibitions in the noughties featured the work of sculptor George Kennethson, and constructivist Jean Spencer.
In 2015, the Redfern held William Gear’s Centenary Exhibition, which subsequently travelled to Eastbourne’s Towner Gallery, and Edinburgh’s City Art Centre, where it ran until January 2016. late 2015, the Redfern mounted an exhibition of works by Danny Fox, 'As he bowed his head to drink'. More recently, the gallery has held retrospectives of Danny Markey, Margaret Mellis and Arnold van Praag.