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Gimpel Fils is aLondon art gallery previously located at 30 Davies Street inWestminster just offGrosvenor Square and has since moved. The gallery was founded by Charles and Peter Gimpel, sons of the celebrated Parisian art dealer,René Gimpel, author of theDiary of an Art Dealer.[1][2] Throughout its history it has maintained a commitment to contemporary British and International art.[3]
Gimpel Fils was founded in November 1946. The first exhibition,Five Centuries of French Painting, was based on the small part of René Gimpel's collection that had been sent to London before theSecond World War. The bulk of his stock was lost in Paris.[4]
During the 1950s and 60s Gimpel Fils was highly influential in its association with theavant-garde. It supported modern British artists, including those of theSt Ives School, as well as rising American artists and French abstract painters of theSchool of Paris. Gimpel Fils represented many of the major artists of the time, includingBarbara Hepworth andBen Nicholson. Nicholson moved to Gimpel Fils from theLefevre Gallery and stayed until the early 1960s. In supporting the next generation of artists emerging in this period it gave first exhibitions toLynn Chadwick,Anthony Caro, Hubert Dalwood,Peter Lanyon andAlan Davie, while also being associated with a number of other British artists, includingLouis le Brocquy,Ivon Hitchens,Gillian Ayres,Bernard Meadows,Kenneth Armitage andRobert Adams. From France Gimpel Fils represented the likes ofMarie Laurencin,Pierre Soulages,Nicolas de Staël,Serge Poliakoff,Fahrelnissa Zeid, andYves Klein, as well as working with American artists such asMarcel Duchamp,Alexander Calder,Willem de Kooning,Sam Francis andLarry Rivers, who had his first London exhibition at the gallery in 1962.[1][4][5] An obituary of Peter Gimpel inThe Independent newspaper suggested that: "Despite the rise of Marlborough Fine Art and stiff competition from the likes of the Redfern, Waddington and Hanover galleries, Gimpel Fils was for a time unrivaled in the range and quality of its artists."[4]
The gallery continues to promote the work of that generation of artists, supporting the work of senior British painters such asAlan Davie andAlbert Irvin, while also presenting retrospectives of 20th-century modern art. The contemporary programme has widened the range of work shown by the gallery and has developed to include artists such asCorinne Day,Andres Serrano,Callum Morton andHannah Maybank.[1][3][4]
Gimpel Fils was initially based, briefly, at 86 Duke Street, London, before moving to 50South Molton Street, where the artist Louis Le Brocquy laid a mosaic in the entrance.[5] It relocated to its present premises at 30 Davies Street in 1972.[5] The gallery was refurbished in 2000. The refurbishment was inaugurated with an installation byRichard Wilson.[1]
The Gimpel family retained a strong interest in the running of the gallery. The current co-director is René Gimpel, son of Charles and a fourth generation of the Gimpel family to become an art dealer.[1][4]
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