Wertheim Gallery

Lucy Carrington Wertheim (1883-1971) was the wife of a Manchester shipping Magnate and a renowned commercial art gallery dealer in London during the period 1930-39 and in Manchester, 1932-33. Lucy Wertheim was a modernist with a distinct taste for primitive painting. Her star artists included Christopher Wood, Nano Reid, Norah McGuinness and many of the Dublin based White Stag Group. Wertheim's London gallery was located in Burlington Gardens in the heart of the West End and was a mecca for the serious collector looking for a bargain. So keen was her eye that it was alleged she used to buy pictures from L.S. Lowry for 10 shillings a time to give away as Christmas presents.

Wertheim was also the founder of the short-lived Twenties Group which only allowed artists below the age of thirty to exhibit. These included Basil Rákóczi, Barbara Hepworth, Roger Hilton, Robert Medley, Victor Pasmore, Christopher Wood, Elizabeth Rivers and Norah McGuinness who were all aged between twenty and thirty. At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 both the Wertheim Gallery closed, and the Twenties Group ceased to exist. Towards the end of her life Wertheim was look after by artists Kathleen Walne (a former employee) and her husband Eric Ward at their home in Hove. She magnanimously donated many hundreds of pictures from her own collection to art gallery in the UK and abroad.