Following the successful exhibition ‘Nigel Henderson: Parallel of Life and Art’ which toured the UK during 2001 and 2002, The Mayor Gallery will present for sale this September a significant selection of Henderson’s vintage photographs, collages and paintings.
Once hailed by the art critic David Sylvester as ‘a seminal figure in post-war British art’, Nigel Henderson enjoyed the company of an extraordinary range of friends from an early age, including Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Peggy Guggenheim, Hans Arp, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Humphrey Spender. Older than most of his contemporaries at the Slade and the Institute of Contemporary Arts after the war, Henderson has been described by the artist Richard Hamilton as ‘a great conduit of ideas and information’ for what became known as The Independent Group.
Married to Judith Stephen (the niece of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell), Henderson lived with his wife in Bethnal Green in the East End of London from 1949-54 during which he time he discovered his interest in photography and devoted much of his time to recording the street life around him. Key images from this body of work will be on display in the gallery along with a number of sets of images including the ‘Strong Man’ series and the Queen’s Coronation of 1953. Of particular importance amongst these vintage prints is the set of images used by Alison and Peter Smithson as part of their manifesto-collage ‘CIAM Grille’ (1953), now owned by the Pompidou Centre.
In addition, there are two major works from the ‘Plant Delta’ series of 1961 (oil and photographic processes) which encapsulate Henderson’s sustained passion for the visual order he discovered under the microscope as a student of Biology in the 1930s.
Henderson’s established reputation as a collagist which brought him to the attention of artists and friends including Peter Blake, Barry Flanagan and Colin St John Wilson can also be appreciated in three distinctive works which reveal the artist’s playful regard for Dadaist artists such as Hannah Hoch and Raoul Haussmann.
The first monograph on the artist was published by Thames & Hudson in 2001 with texts by Victoria Walsh and a Foreword and Afterword by Peter Smithson. Copies are available for the duration of the exhibition at The Mayor Gallery.
Nigel Henderson’s work can be found, amongst others, in the following public collections: Tate, V&A, Museum of London, Arts Council Collection, Pompidou Centre, MOMA New York and the Brooklyn Museum.
For further information please contact Diana Ewer at The Mayor Gallery on 0207 734 3558 or email to mail@mayorgallery.com.
| 
