The Redfern Gallery

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.

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 an 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.

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