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Exhibition curator Karen Taylor said:

"The opportunity to read hundreds of artists letters and delve into the Wertheim Gallery ephemera was essential to examine the connections between Lucy Wertheim and the artists she supported. The archive became central to the exhibition research and development however I was aware that the archive had more to reveal. For example, the personal struggles of each artist and the interwar context they worked through. I’m thrilled that the archive has been placed at the PMC for other researchers to access."

Traditionally we have collected the papers of art historians, art dealers, art critics and art curators who have a made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of British art and/or the profession and practice of art history and its associated fields. More recently, recognising that career paths are rarely linear, we have expanded this remit to include a wider range of art historical activities. Our published collecting policy can be read in full on the Paul Mellon Centre website.

Lucy Wertheim, a collector, patron & gallerist, who opened the Wertheim Gallery in London in 1930 and founded the Twenties Group of “English artists in their twenties”, certainly fulfils these criteria.  She played a vital role in fostering emerging British talent in the 1930s. The Wertheim Archive is a particularly significant acquisition for the Centre as it increases the representation of female authored archives in the Centre’s holdings and  demonstrates that the histories of British art are often created by people who might not necessarily have described themselves as professional “art historians”. 

The majority of the material concerns the exhibitions Wertheim organised and the artists she championed: notably figures such as Christopher Wood, Henry Moore, Basil Rákóczi, Phelan Gibb, Kenneth Hall and Frances Hodgkins.  At the heart of the collection sits the extensive correspondence she exchanged with artists.  There is much of individual biographical interest here but also, collectively, a story emerges concerning the role of patronage and what it was to be a young or emerging practitioner at the time.

Likewise, the diversity of Wertheim’s interests as collector, patron and gallerist, not only reveals much about the tastes and trends of the mid-twentieth century but also sheds light on how these concerns influenced and shaped the field of British art. As a woman with no formal training in the field, Wertheim’s archive has much to tell us about the difficulties of operating as a professional female in the male-dominated art world of the time. Material related to unknown and amateur artists surfaces voices that may have been marginalised in previous art-historical narratives. 

We are open to everyone and there is no charge for accessing the material.    

The Lucy Wertheim Archive can be accessed via three routes:

1. Interested researchers can look at material in-person, by visiting the Paul Mellon Centre and consulting the collection on-site in our Public Study Room.

2. They can also request digital copies of particular items in the archive

or

3. submit an enquiry concerning a particular aspect of the collection

Paul Mellon Centre News article

Read more about routes of access

Lucy Wertheim boxlist: view a summary of the contents of the archive