The Leicester Galleries
SIR,—On July 6th you published a kind and generous tribute to the late Cecil Phillips from Mr. Derek Hill. Mr. Douglas Cooper, in your issue of August 3rd, has taken the opportunity of questioning certain state- ments in Mr. Hill's letter. We are sorry if the kind thought that prompted Mr. Hill to write to you has brought this criticism, and we regret if in conversation we have unwittingly misled him about the record of the Leicester Galleries. We have no wish to commence a discussion with Mr. Douglas Cooper. No doubt he has an extensive knowledge of modern art events, but it is characteristic of him to choose every occasion M display his scraps of information. By " first exhibitions " Mr. Derek Hill obviously meant " one-man " exhibitions, and most people would have understood him in this sense. In June, 1925, the Leicester Galleries held the first one-man show of Cezanne in England, as they did of Matisse in 1919, and we believe, Van Gogh in 1923, Gauguin in 1924 and Berthe Morisot in 1930. The exhibition at the Stafford Gallery in April, 1912, was advertised in The Times as "An exhibition of drawings by Pablo Picasso and Joseph Simpson." The two artists' drawings were shown in the same gallery. Our Picasso exhibition in January, 1921, was a one-man exhibition of 72 items, consisting of paintings, water-colours, drawings and prints. The Cizanne and Picasso paintings at the Grafton Galleries in 1905 and 1910 were part of very large collections of pictures by various French artists. Mr. Derek Hill was wrong about the Leicester Galleries holding the first exhibition of Klee's work in England. Our exhibition was held in February, 1941, after Paul Klee's death, not in 1940 as stated by Mr. Cooper who insists so much on accuracy. Unfortunately we are respon- fable for misleading Mr. Hill on-this matter, but we did not know of the exhibitions in 1933 and 1935 at the Mayor Gallery.—Yours faithfully,
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