MICHAEL RELPH (BRITISH, 1915-2004)

Provenance
Marina Henderson Gallery

Footnote
Marina Henderson opened her Gallery in Langton Street, at the World’s End, in 1982. Her main specialities were paintings and drawings related to the performing arts. Her first coup was to exhibit Edward Burra’s designs for ballet, an area of his work that had never been the subject of a Gallery show. Another breakthrough was a series of shows of designs by John Macfarlane early in his career before he became one of the leading international designers for opera and ballet. Other important exhibitions featured Bakst, Barbier, Beaton, Benois, Berard, Berman, Cocteau, Edward Gordon Craig, Erte, Gontcharova, Leslie Hurry, Laura Knight, Larianov, John Minton,Tanya Moisewitch and Picasso.

The Gallery’s customers included actors, directors, curators and archivists from Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Harvard Theatre Museum, the University of Texas and major private collectors in UK and USA.

The Marina Henderson Gallery soon developed into a social club where customers became friends and friends customers. Sadly it closed with the expiry of the lease in 2001. Marina continued to deal privately from home for the next 12 years.