RA Collection: People and Organisations
The Leicester Galleries was a commercial art gallery operating in central London between 1902 and 1977. Initially based in Leicester Square, it moved to 4 Audley Square in 1963, then to 22 Cork Street in 1968. The gallery closed its doors in 1975 but continued to function until 1977.
It was particularly known for exhibiting British and French artists’ work and for promoting the work of leading modernist painters and sculptors. Every one of the 1,400 exhibitions held at the gallery was accompanied by a sequentially numbered catalogue.
In summer 1902, Wilfred and Cecil Phillips opened a gallery in Leicester Square in central London. The following year, they were joined by Ernest Brown, and soon after by his son, Oliver Brown. The proprietors of the gallery traded under the name of Ernest Brown and Phillips throughout its history.
Oliver Brown published a history of the Leicester Galleries in 1968:
Oliver Brown, Exhibition: the memoirs of Oliver Brown. London: Evelyn, Adams and Mackay, 1968
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art holds copies of around a 1/3rd of the galleries catalogues, and has produced an informative online resource documenting the history of the Leicester Gallery, its exhibitions and catalogues:
The Leicester Galleries and its Exhibition Catalogues. Paul Mellon Centre. Online resource.
Society of Twenty-Five Painters
Catalogue of the seventh London exhibition of the Society of Twenty-Five Painters - London: 1919
12/2225
Catalogue of Mr Punch's Pageant, 1841-1908 - London: 1909
08/3061
Sir Edmund William Gosse
Memorial exhibition of the work of the late Sir Alfred East, R.A., P.R.B.A., R.E. / with a prefatory note by Mr. Edmund Gosse, C.B., LL.D. - London: 1914
14/2772