Mayor Gallery
{{Short description|Contemporary art gallery in St James', London}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox museum
| name = The Mayor Gallery
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| image = Mayor Gallery.jpg
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| established = 1925
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| location = Bury Street, St James', London, England
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| type = Art gallery, modern art, contemporary art
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| founder = {{plainlist|
- Fred Mayor
- Douglas Cooper }}
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| website = {{URL|https://www.mayorgallery.com}}
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The Mayor Gallery is an art gallery located on Bury Street, London, England. Since its foundation by Fred Mayor in partnership with Douglas Cooper in 1925, it has promoted modern and contemporary art.{{Cite web|url=https://news.artnet.com/market/artnet-asks-james-mayor-97007|title=artnet Asks: James Mayor|date=September 10, 2014|website=Artnet News}}{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Mayor Gallery {{!}} Artist Biographies|url=https://www.artbiogs.co.uk/2/galleries/mayor-gallery|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210108155412/https://www.artbiogs.co.uk/2/galleries/mayor-gallery|archive-date=2021-01-08|access-date=2021-01-08|website=www.artbiogs.co.uk}} Since the early 1970s, under the new impulse given by James Mayor, Fred Mayor's son, the Gallery started to focus actively on the work of contemporary American artists from the Pop art movement but also Conceptual art and Abstract expressionism such as Eva Hesse, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Ryman, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol. More recently, taking further its interest for Minimal art and Dada, the Gallery has been promoting artists of the international Zero (art) movement, including Heinz Mack, Otto Piene amongst others.{{Cite web|url=https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-a-london-show-reveals-lesser-known-works-by|title=A London Show Reveals Lesser-Known Works by Group Zero Pioneers Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker|date=June 12, 2015|website=Artsy}}
History
The Mayor Gallery opened in 1925 at 37 Sackville Street. The gallery closed in 1926, and reopened in 1933 at 18 Cork Street, in an area regarded as the historic art district of London.{{Cite web|url=http://corkstgalleries.com/articles/cork-street-uncorked-john-dunbar-in-conversation-with-james-mayor/|title=Cork Street Uncorked: John Dunbar in conversation with James Mayor|website=Cork Street Galleries}} Many foreign artists were exhibited for the very first time in England at the Mayor Gallery including major ones such as Alexander Calder and Paul Klee. In its early years the Mayor Gallery was also instrumental to the creation of Unit One,Herbert Read (ed.) (1934) Unit One: the modern movement in English architecture, painting and sculpture. London: Cassell a British group formed by the painter Paul Nash in 1933 with fellow artists Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Edward Wadsworth, Edward Burra and others to promote Modern art, architecture and design.
The German Jewish refugee art dealer Alfred Flechtheim worked for the Mayor Gallery after his art gallery was Aryanized by Nazis in Germany.{{Cite web |title=Alfred Flechtheim - The Metropolitan Museum of Art |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/fr/research-centers/leonard-a-lauder-research-center/research-resources/modern-art-index-project/flechtheim |access-date=2024-11-16 |website=www.metmuseum.org |language=fr}} Flechtheim' gallery records were left with Mayor but were destroyed.{{Cite web |title=Archives Directory for the History of Collecting |url=https://research.frick.org/directory/detail/225 |access-date=2024-11-16 |website=research.frick.org |language=en |quote=At his death, Flechtheim left his gallery records and personal library (now destroyed) with Fred Mayor, founder of Mayor Gallery.}}{{Cite web |title=Artist Info |url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.10873.html |access-date=2024-11-16 |website=www.nga.gov}}{{Cite journal |last=Ivanoff |first=Hélène |date=2015-04-14 |title=Ottfried Dascher, « Es ist was Wahnsinniges mit der Kunst » : Alfred Flechtheim. Sammler, Kunsthändler, Verleger |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4000/ifha.8190 |journal=Revue de l'Institut français d'histoire en Allemagne |doi=10.4000/ifha.8190 |issn=2190-0078}}{{Cite web |date=2018-10-29 |title=Two Expressionist Masterworks Restituted to the Heirs of Collector, Dealer and Bon Vivant Alfred Flechtheim |url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/two-expressionist-masterworks-restituted-to-the-heirs-of-collector-dealer-and-bon-vivant-alfred-flechtheim |access-date=2024-11-16 |website=Sothebys.com |language=en |quote=Alfred Flechtheim’s hope was to relocate to Paris or New York with Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler or Paul Rosenberg but in December 1933 he moved to London and worked with the Mayor Gallery. From 1934 he represented Kahnweiler’s Galerie Simon in London and desperately went back and forth to Paris to make a living. In London he organized exhibitions of works by Picasso, Gris, Léger and Marie Laurencin and up until 1936 he managed to enter and leave Nazi Germany on several occasions at great personal risk to see his wife Betty who has stayed in Berlin because she was unable to pay Jewish ‘flight tax.’}}
Notes
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External links
- {{Official website|http://www.mayorgallery.com/}}
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