Abbott and Holder

Abbott and Holder
Company typeArt dealers
Founded1936 (1936)
Founders
  • Robert Abbott
  • Eric Holder
Headquarters
30 Museum Street, Camden, London, England
51°31′04″N 0°07′33″W / 51.5178712°N 0.1259238°W / 51.5178712; -0.1259238
Websitewww.abbottandholder-thelist.co.uk Edit this at Wikidata
Museum Street: Abbott and Holder is the fourth building in on the left with the pale blue frontage
Portrait of a boy by Harry Becker, offered for sale by Abbott and Holder in 2017.

Abbott and Holder is an art gallery and dealership in London, England, that specialises in low-price, 19th- and 20th-century English paintings, watercolours, drawings and prints.[1][2] The gallery has been located at 30 Museum Street, London WC1 since 1987.[1][3][4]

The company was founded by and named after Robert Abbott, a former headmaster and a Quaker minister,[5] and non-theist Quaker Eric Holder, an accountant and lifelong conscientious objector who joined the FAU during the Second World War.[5] The pair first dealt art jointly in 1936 [3][6] after meeting at the Friends' Meeting House, Tottenham, where Robert Abbott lived in a flat attached to the House (the original Tottenham FMH was demolished in 1961), with the first 'List' published in 1942. In 1947 Robert Abbott and Eric Holder bought 73 Castelnau, SW13, from Frederick Tisdall on a seventeen-year lease. In 1957, the year before Eric Holder's youngest daughter Sally was born, the freehold of 73 was acquired. Robert retired on health grounds in 1959 [5] and Eric bought Robert's share of business and Castelnau. In 1969, Anna Holder was listed on the company's letterhead and the family helped in running the business. Robert's nephew John Abbott (1937–2011),[5] who had worked for the firm in the 1960s,[5] became a partner in 1971.[4] Eric Holder retired in 1981 and Philip Athill,[7] an art history graduate and assistant at the gallery from 1979,[5] eventually the company's Managing Director, became a partner in 1984.[4] John Abbott retired in 2001.[8] On 31 March 2021 Athill announced on the gallery's website that he had on his retirement passed the business to junior director Tom Edwards, thereby maintaining an unbroken line of successful partnership since 1936. [9]

Before moving to Museum Street, the gallery occupied part of a house at 73 Castelnau, Barnes, which had been Robert Abbott's home.[8][10] The large Victorian property belonged to the Eric Holder family from 1959 to 1981, with 'the business' occupying the basement and ground floor.

As well as general sales, promoted with a monthly-updated "list", the gallery holds topical and artist-specific exhibitions,[11][12][13][14] occasionally including living artists.[15][16] In 1960, Eric Holder invited Reginald Gray to hold his first London solo exhibition at the gallery.[17] In 1961, Gray painted Holder's portrait.[17]

The gallery's clients have included the UK Government Art Collection[18] and Abbott and Holder's near neighbour, the British Museum.[19] Over four hundred and fifty works on paper at the British Museum have come from them. Many other prominent institutions from around the world also have work that passed their hands including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. [20]

Abbott and Holder are members of the British Antique Dealers' Association.[21]

  1. ^ a b Gleadell, Colin (21 February 2006). "Under a grand: Abbott and Holder". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  2. ^ Pandya, Nick (13 December 2003). "Under the hammer: Art works". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  3. ^ a b "Abbott and Holder Ltd". BADA. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  4. ^ a b c "Abbott and Holder Ltd". Royal Academy of Arts. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "John Abbott" (PDF). The Times. 28 April 2012.
  6. ^ "Abbott and Holder". Works on Paper Fair. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  7. ^ Philip is nephew and heir to literary editor, novelist and memoirist Diana Athill
  8. ^ a b "Gallery History". Abbott and Holder. Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  9. ^ "The List". Archived from the original on 8 April 2021.
  10. ^ "History of art in Barnes". Barnes Artists. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  11. ^ James, David (2 April 2017). "An exhibition of work by RS Thomas' wife Mildred Eldridge". Wales Online. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  12. ^ "A spy with an eye for fashion". Christie's. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  13. ^ "From cartoons to Mediterranean art". Times of Malta. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  14. ^ "The Camp in the Oatfield". Abbott and Holder Ltd. Archived from the original on 30 December 2013.
  15. ^ "The ARTS Interview: Botanical Artist, Jess Shepherd". The Ecologist. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  16. ^ "Abbott and Holder Ltd : Prue Cooper - Slipware dishes". Studio Pottery. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  17. ^ a b Gray, Reginald (15 November 2007). "Eric Holder". Reginald Gray Portraits. Retrieved 10 February 2019.
  18. ^ "John Bluck - Twenty-four Views taken in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, The Red Sea, Abyssinia & Egypt". Government Art Collection. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  19. ^ "drawing". British Museum. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  20. ^ "Metropolitan Museum of Art: Studies of "Fortitude" and "Purity" for the Mosaic "St. George and the Dragon", by Edward John Poynter".
  21. ^ "British Antique Dealers' Association". CINOA. Retrieved 10 February 2019.