‘One woman show’: Lillian Browse’s wartime exhibitions in Britain, 1940–45

The first temporary exhibitions ever held at the National Gallery, during the Second World War, were the brainchild of a South African émigré art dealer, Lillian Browse (1906–2005). Likewise, she was instrumental in organising the Arts Council’s first touring exhibitions from 1942 to 1947 of artists like Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975), Graham Sutherland (1903–1980), and Henry Moore (1898–1986). Browse credited her time in the National Gallery’s nascent Curatorial Department (1940–43) with her later decision to open a gallery on London’s Cork Street. While the introduction of classical music by Myra Hess (1890–1965) into the Gallery during the war has been recognised as transformative for its public programme, hitherto there has been no sustained discussion about the exhibitions that Browse mounted there during the Second World War. This article sheds light on Browse’s activity as one of Britain’s first female art dealers.