Rowley Gallery
of 11-15 St Mary Abbots Terrace, Kensington High Street, London, W14. Telephone: Western 2006. Cables: "Pictures, London"
- 1898 The Rowley Gallery was established at 6 High Road, Silver Street, Kensington.
- In 1909, Silver Street was renamed, and although remaining in the same premises, the new address became 140 Church Street.
- The business was founded by Albert James Rowley and his wife Emma. Albert grew up in nearby Hammersmith, the son of James Rowley, an ecclesiastical carver and muralist. Emma grew up in Kensington and was the daughter of a local builder.
- The Rowley Gallery was founded in the same year that the couple married, as a small business specialising in picture framing, mounting, restoration, carving, gilding and exhibitions of paintings. Their label at this time featured a Toulouse-Lautrec style image of Mr & Mrs Rowley admiring a framed picture.
- Albert had been a pupil at St Paul’s School, Hammersmith and his friendship with the artist Frank Brangwyn seems to date from this period through his association with Hammersmith’s artistic community. Brangwyn worked for a while for William Morris who lived at Upper Mall in Hammersmith from 1878 until his death in 1896, and Albert was undoubtedly inspired by the legacy of the Arts and Crafts Movement established by Morris.
- Soon the Rowley Gallery was also producing inlaid wood panels and furniture. Designs for panels were at first adapted from paintings by artists such as Millais, Whistler and Lord Leighton, but then A. J. Rowley began to commission artists to make designs specifically for wood panels.
- The Rowley Gallery premises expanded and its address became 140-142 Church Street, Kensington.
- 1920s Rowley’s son, Laurence, joined the firm in the mid-20s, bringing his enthusiasm for furniture design. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Rowley Gallery became renowned for its inlay wood panels, mirrors and screens as well as for its silver leaf furniture and interiors.
- There were workshops in Campden Street, Kensington Place and Addison Bridge Place. There were six cabinet makers, three French polishers, five workers in the paint shop and five seamstresses making curtains. Carpets were also designed and manufactured at these premises. There were two wood mills, and although some use of machinery was inevitable, dove-tailing was still done by hand. There was a staff of around fifteen at Campden Street and about four or five porters at the main shop in Church Street.
- By 1933, such was the success of the business that the premises at 140-142 Church Street were rebuilt in Portland stone, featuring a frieze of three life size carved wooden panels depicting sawyers, painters, and carpenters. The interior decoration of the galleries featured walls “panelled in Japanese golden senwood with burnished silver fittings and black floors”. Some of Laurence Rowley’s designs at this time were inspired by the utopian spirit of Modernism, and the Rowley Gallery produced furniture and decorative schemes in response to the growing need for space saving devices and good design.
- 1940 The new building was hit by an incendiary bomb during WW2. The business moved to their workshop premises at 86 and 87 Campden Street, and from that time concentrated mainly on picture framing.
- 1944 A. J. Rowley died and the business continued under the directorship of Laurence Rowley.
- 1947 Listed Exhibitor - British Industries Fair. Producers of Picture and Mirror Frames in Antique and Modern Styles. Decorative Panels, Screens, Ornaments for Interiors in Wood, Silvered Plaster and other new materials. Commissions for original designs accepted. (Olympia, 1st Floor, Stand No. G.2055) [1] * In 1967, Laurence’s son, Christopher Rowley, was responsible for opening new showrooms at the present address, 115 Kensington Church Street, which had direct access to the workshops at 86 and 87 Campden Street. Christopher Rowley was not entirely in tune with the times, and it unfortunately proved inauspicious for a relaunch.
- In 1969, upon hearing that the Rowley Gallery was about to close, Jonathan Savill and Jack Rutherford determined to rescue the business. Both had been customers for many years, but it was Savill with his artistic and cabinet making skills who breathed new life into the ailing company. His enthusiasm sustained The Rowley Gallery for over 25 years until his retirement.
- 1995 Jonathan Savill sold the business to three employees, Chris Hamer, Kai Yin Lam and Cathy Williams, who became directors, carrying on trade as framemakers, gilders and restorers. In the same year, Cathy invited her cousin, David Kitchin, to realise his long held ambition to open a picture gallery. He rented wall space from the Rowley Gallery to start his own independent business, trading as Rowley Gallery Contemporary Arts until 2006.
- Cathy Williams retired in 2003. Chris Hamer and Kai Yin Lam continue as The Rowley Gallery’s present directors and guardians, nowadays not only framemaking, gilding and restoring, but also exhibiting their own selection of contemporary paintings and prints.
- Note: (11/08)
- The Rowley Gallery has its own website: [1]