About us
Behind the solid oak door on the corner of Cadogan
Place lies another world: a true Aladdin's Cave. Pause for a moment
in the midst of London's bustle and the quiet cofines of the Ackermann
and Johnson gallery will offer up a visual feast of style and
colour, spanning a period of some two hundred years of British
Art.
With his father, Peter Johnson set up the gallery
40 years ago, and it has flourished ever since. Friends and clients
often pop in and royalty, actors, pop stars and sportsmen rank
among its supporters. There is a constant traffic of paintings
through the gallery door, sustained by moods of taste and fashion
and the insatiable visual appetite of the public at large.
The sale of paintings to such eminent institutions
as the Tate Gallery, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, the
National Maritime Museum, the Musee Lambinet at Versailles, the
Musee du Petit Palais, Paris, and to the British Museum, gives
some hint of the achievement of the gallery over past four decades;
and, of the many exhibitions held at the gallery since 1963, the
two William Huggins shows illustrate the policy underlying that
success. A speculative trip in 1966 produced a selection of painting
by the unsung, Liverpool artist William Huggins. The paintings
formed the nucleus of an exhibition that met with instant success.
Since then the popularity of the artist has spiraled: our 1984
exhibition, The Menagerie of William Huggins, was again
greeted with enthusiasm and the acquisition of the Blue Donkey
by the Tate Gallery bears witness to the merit of the artist.
Over the years, diversity has been a keynote, qualified
by the guiding factors of colour, condition and composition. Specialising,
primarily, in the paintings of the Norwich School (tranquil, rural
landscapes, rooted in the tradition of the Dutch masters of the
17th century, but with their own more intimate quality), the gallery
has presented a myriad of pictures to its clients from the Scottish
landscapes of the Nasmyth family to the colourful canvases of
the Scottish artist, Douglas Anderson; and from the still, watery
views of BW Leader to the exhilarating brushstrokes of the contemporary
artist Ken Howard. Exhibitions of the works of Arthur Claude Cooke
and Harry Bush ('Painter of the Suburbs') are confirmation of
the endeavour of the gallery to promote the work of lesser-known
artists. At the other end of the spectrum, exhibitions such as
the Quintessence of Civilisation and Major Masterpieces
have brought together works by well-established masters.
The present selection has been specially assembled
to mark our Golden Jubilee, and it is hoped that, behind the great
oak door, that there is something for everybody to enjoy.
|
|
