Biography
Piccadilly Gallery was founded in 1953 by Eve Pilkington and her late husband Godfrey Pilkington (1918-2007). The following year they were joined by Christabel Briggs. In 2007, just before the death of co-founder Godfrey, the gallery closed their public store front. Over half a century of trade, they cut an individual path, avoiding the prevailing commercialism and the fashion for abstract art. They championed the works of unjustly neglected figurative artists, Art Nouveau and 19th- and 20th-century Symbolism.
The gallery operated from a number of West End addresses first from bomb-damaged premises in the Piccadilly Arcade and then on to 16a Cork Street in 1954. In 1978 they moved next door to No. 16 Cork street and 1999 the gallery temporarily moved to Dover Street.
They promoted the artists Adrian Berg as well as Max Beerbohm, Gwen John, Eric Gill and William Roberts as well as hosting major exhibitions of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and the German Neue Sachlichkeit.
