iii. Harry Gladwell

“At the eleventh hour Mr. Gladwell was able to secure the premises in Queen Victoria Street, where the business is still being conducted under the style of Gladwell & Co., Ltd. Here is an excellent corner, within a hundred yards of the site of the Cheapside shop and here as of yore the windows are a continuous source of attraction to the conglomeration of humanity which daily infest this City of ours in search of the wherewithal to obtain the sustenance essential for the body if not for the soul, from the top-hatted magnate to the messenger boy eating his lunch from a scruffy paper bag.”

The Art Trade Journal, May 1936 - Retail Personalities no. 6 - Mr. A.L. Gladwell

Gladwell & Company ‘Gladwell’s Corner’ 68 Queen Victoria Street (1928-2012)

I fondly remember as a young boy coming up to the City of London to visit my father and Grandfather in the gallery. The magnificent, curved glass windows crammed with paintings. The elegant red velvet curtains and wooden panelling. The curtains that my grandmother had lovingly handmade, their hems filled and sewn up with old coins and lead weights.

As you stepped across the historic mosaic doorstep brought down from the Cheapside gallery and reinstalled here – ‘Gladwell’s Corner’, you were stepping into a wonderland.

Paintings hung floor to ceiling and on every available space on the back of doors and up and down the stairs. A compact and charming space, the gallery was a haven for all who visited. A place of calm amongst the hubbub of the surrounding City.

I remember being in awe of the beautiful paintings. The swinging gate at the top of the stairs with the small enamel label ‘PRIVATE’ attached in the centre, probably exactly at my eye level at the time. A gate to a special world downstairs full of incredible works of art. The curious staircase with two landings, so brilliantly designed; a staircase to a private haven only a few knew. My grandfather had always taken great stead in a book he had read about a famous and successful art dealer who had three rooms in his gallery each one reserved for ever more favoured clients – an inner sanctum for the very lucky.

That’s what it felt like here at Gladwells.

I remember the smell of the place, a mixture of the smell of newly varnished oil paintings and years of the smoke from Woodbines which my grandfather favoured. I remember the old Bakelite light switches. The downstairs gallery was a wonder; two old coal holes served as the office and the packing room, crammed and packed with invaluable records and ledgers of sales passed, clients and artists, photos and reference books. Catalogues of auctions past and present; potential treasures to add to the collection.

There were racks full of neatly arranged canvases and framed paintings, hidden cupboards full of yet more treasure. Folios packed full of watercolours and etchings, each one a beauty to behold.

It was the smallest gallery in the world and yet it seemed like the largest. Every inch of space was used and filled to the brim with years and years of history and tradition.

Pictures were arranged in neat stacks against the walls, often five or six deep and the the gallery’s esteemed clientele would like nothing better than coming and unearthing a hidden treasure that spoke to them.

All this left a searing impression on me, because, never pressured, I found myself drawn to the old gallery after my spell at St. Andrew’s University. I thought “I’ll go and help dad for a bit”. That was some thirty years ago.

We continued to improve the gallery, but the spirit never changed. Better track lighting, a dimmer switch and a curtained display area became a staple of the downstairs gallery. A place where a particular choice work of art could be isolated from the crowded walls and enjoyed in isolation. The dimmer switch allowing the viewer to enjoy the painting under different levels of light as it would be in their homes at different times of the day or year.

Air conditioning was installed to try and alleviate the intense temperatures in the summer, which were an unavoidable byproduct of the huge south facing windows. A greenhouse in all but name, even the beautiful old blind that could be pulled down couldn’t do enough to hold back the sun.

The shopfront itself, listed and unique, remains as it was to this day, the large Gladwell & Company Bakelite name still displayed above the tops of the windows.

The gallery moved here in 1928 after many years on Cheapside and Gracechurch Street and the windows were slightly redesigned in the 1960s. Many a businessman had stopped in a taxi at the traffic lights as they were passing and come back in to see a painting they liked.

We were situated across the road form another old City institution, Sweetings the fish restaurant, and many a client came from a long lunch there or indeed was taken to a long lunch there. Fine fish and sawdust on the floors, we were both bastions of the revolution.

We left Queen Victoria Street in 2012, the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics. We had enjoyed the river pageant, despite the rain, from a tall ship at Tower Bridge. Our experience of the Jubilee from the Pool of London was superb, and we still fondly remember our day on Old Father Thames.

We experienced the celebrations for the Monarch and saw London come alive an Olympic parade of athletes, as soon many Lord Mayors Shows had also done, passed right by the gallery door.

The City basked in jubilation and celebration as our own anniversary due near. A final hurrah and the second sale of the century saw us off.

For eighty-three years, 68 Queen Victoria Street, on the corner of the old Roman Watling Street, was our home. It served us proud. Our windows took the brunt of the Second World War, being blown out on twenty-seven occasions but still the gallery stood strong. It was a wrench to leave this beautiful old gallery after such a long and historic time in the company’s history, but it will forever hold a place in our hearts.