Carfax Gallery

Founded in 1898 in Ryder Street, Mayfair the gallery was originally known as Carfax and Co. By 1906 it had changed locations to nearby Bury Street where it was to remain for two decades or so of its existence. The founder of the gallery is considered to be William Rothenstein, artist, teacher and energetic art social worker. He was later to become Head of the RCA. During the period 1901-09, the Carfax under the direction of Robert Baldwin Ross, (1869–1918) represented a successful attempt to exhibit and sell the work of largely unknown artists whose work was traditionally shunned by the Royal Academy. They championed the Camden Town Group and the Group held its first exhibition at the Carfax in 1911. During its first decade of business, it showed a myriad of artist including work by William Blake, Auguste Rodin, Eugene Delacroix, Gericault and Ingres. Contemporary British and Colonial artists who showed included, Charles Conder, Wilfrid G. von Glehn (as he was then known), Duncan Grant, William Orpen, Augustus and Gwen John, John Singer Sargent, Philip Wilson Steer, Alfred Stevens and Ethelbert White who held his first solo show at the Carfax in 1921. By now the Gallery had been taken over by Arthur Bellamy Clifton, (1863-1932) who was married to Madeline Knox. It is believed that the gallery was still functioning well into the late 1920's but its exact closure date I have as yet been unable to ascertain.