The Mayor Gallery

The Mayor Gallery was the first gallery to open its doors in Cork Street, Mayfair, London; a now internationally renowned street in the art world for its many commercial art galleries. Founded by Fred Mayor (1903-1973) in 1925, many artists exhibited for the first time in England in his gallery including, amongst others, Francis Bacon, Alexander Calder, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, André Masson, Juan Miró and Eduardo Paolozzi. The Mayor Gallery was also the centre of UNIT ONE (1933-1935), a British group of Modernist artists founded by Paul Nash.

Fred’s son, James Mayor took over the Gallery in 1973 at the age of 23, having set up the Post-war and Contemporary Art department in Sotheby’s New York in 1970. Since then The Mayor Gallery has shown the work of many leading American artists offering their first commercial shows in England to Eva Hesse, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Cy Twombly, many with whom James Mayor had close friendships with.

Today The Mayor Gallery is renowned for being London’s foremost gallery for exhibiting artists from the Zero and Concrete movements, mostly from Western Europe, Central Europe and Latin America, particularly early artworks from the 1950s and 60s. The gallery continues to offer works of leading American Pop artists as well as Dada, Surrealism and European Nouveau Realism. The Mayor Gallery prides itself in its close and lasting relationships with its collectors and museums, contributing in building great collections and loans to many exhibitions worldwide every year.