Private View for ‘Reclining Drunk’ by Gilbert & George, Nigel Greenwood Gallery, 1973

Gilbert is on the far left and George in the middle, stood next to their display of two hundred ‘An Ash Tray/Collapsed Bottle Sculpture’. Drink and gin was an important part of the artists work at the time. The writer Gordon Burn, a great friend of Nigel Greenwood’s, captured this well, too well in fact, in an interview for Vogue which at the time was never published because the artists, and Gordon, got too drunk. It was later published in Gordon Burn’s collection of art writing, Death and Violence, Sex and Silence. ‘Nearly all the artists’, George said, ‘they are nearly all drunks. The whole art world, they get drunk all the time. It’s amazing. We think it’s very honest of us to realise it can be a subject. You get really smashed and the next day you paint a beautiful picture, pretty stripes or something, and then you get drunk again, and it’s absolutely nothing to do with your way of life, really. And we like to be very lifelike, in a way, not to be too artistic.’

Press release for Barry Le Va Extended Vertex Meetings: Blocked: Blown Outwards. London, 1971

Extended Vertex Meetings: Blocked: Blown Outwards by Barry Le Va. London, 1971

Dark Shadow by Gilbert & George, published by Nigel Greenwood Gallery Inc Ltd, 1976

Published in a signed edition of 2000, it cost £15

Nigel Greenwood, Basle Art Fair, 1970s

Nigel Greenwood is sat looking serious at his desk at the Basle Art Fair in the early 1970s. Behind him are two works by Ed Ruscha, Business and Hot Shot. Nigel Greenwood worked with Ed Ruscha for over a decade and was the first London gallerist to give the Los Angeles-based artist a solo show. Their correspondences, including letters documenting Ed Ruscha’s exhibition of books and first London painting show, both hosted at the gallery, are held in the Nigel Greenwood Archive.

Nigel Greenwood gallery business card, 1985. Logo designed by Marc Camille Chaimowicz

The Nigel Greenwood Prize website design is based on original artwork designed for the Nigel Greenwood Gallery in 1985 by Marc Camille Chaimowicz. In 1985, the gallery moved from 41 Sloane Gardens to larger premises at 4 New Burlington Street.  

Thank you to Marc for allowing us to work with his designs. Nigel Greenwood supported and represented Marc Camille Chaimowicz for almost two decades.

Etching of Nigel Greenwood by Barry Flanagan, 1972. Gifted to Nigel Greenwood by Barry Flanagan.

Judy and Nigel Greenwood, Nigel Greenwood Inc Ltd, 60 Glebe Place, 1969/70. Photograph by Germano Celant

This picture shows Judy Greenwood, left, and Nigel Greenwood, right. The photo was taken downstairs at 60 Glebe Place, Nigel Greenwood’s first gallery, around 1969/1970. The photo was taken by Germano Celant. In 1972, Celant would curate the seminal Book as Artwork exhibition at the Nigel Greenwood Gallery, the accompanying publication, Book As Artwork, is heralded as the first critical consideration of the artists’ book.

Judy and Nigel are sat at Judy’s desk. Judy, Nigel’s sister, worked with Nigel for several years and helped to run the gallery. This is the same desk on which Gilbert and George performed ‘Underneath The Arches/The Singing Sculpture’ at the gallery in 1970, “The gallery space was empty apart from the table, their walking stick, them and their painted rubber glove,” says Judy, “My memory of those G & G days was how difficult it was to absent oneself from the hypnotic effect of the ‘performance’. They would continue for 4 to 5 hours without a break. If I had to go out for a sandwich, I’d dash back to check, almost obsessively, that they were still ‘at it’! People would come back repeatedly to see them.”