LONDON.- From 9 October to 11 December 2026,
Ordovas presents the first exhibition dedicated to celebrating Erica Brausen (1908–1992), a trailblazing gallerist of the post-war era, and founder of the legendary Hanover Gallery in Mayfair, London.
The first gallerist to establish the reputation of Francis Bacon, who said she had the best eye in the art world, Brausen built the Hanover Gallery into a pivotal force in the development of contemporary art in post-war London, championing both British and international artists including Lucian Freud, Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Alberto Giacometti, Germaine Richier and Niki de Saint Phalle, among many others.
A native German who moved to Paris in the 1930s, becoming part of its thriving art scene, she fled to London in 1937, on the eve of World War II; in the decades that followed, she fundamentally transformed and invigorated the city’s cultural landscape, using her connections to bring major international artists to a British audience. As a gay migrant woman of German origin, she was naturally drawn to presenting the work of migr, queer and female artists.
Hanover Gallery at Ordovas features loans from both major institutions and private collections, and includes important works handled by the gallerist alongside contextual and archive material. The upstairs gallery is dedicated to depictions of the human figure by Francis Bacon, Alberto Giacometti and Germaine Richier, while the downstairs space is devoted to presenting a wider cross-section of post-war artists Brausen featured. The exhibition is curated in collaboration with Jane Alison, formerly the Head of Visual Arts at Barbican and curator of their 2022 exhibition Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945–1965, who has also authored an essay for the fully illustrated catalogue.
This is the second exhibition at Ordovas to focus on pioneering female gallerists of the post-war period following the success of Peggy Guggenheim and London, in 2019. This subject is currently being explored further at Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector which opened at the Guggenheim, Venice in April 2026, and will travel to the Royal Academy of Arts, London (21 November 2026–14 March 2027) and Guggenheim New York (16 April–12 September 2027).
Representing Brausen’s foundational role in launching the career of Francis Bacon (1909–1992) is Sketch for a Portrait of Lisa, 1955, exhibited at the Hanover Gallery in 1957 and on loan from the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. The earliest and finest of a group commissioned by Sir Robert and Lady Lisa Sainsbury, it followed their introduction to Bacon by Erica Brausen in 1953 when they became important early patrons. It is also the first time Bacon depicted a woman as the subject of a painting and, unusually, was painted from life rather than photographs.
Brausen became friends with Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) in Paris in the early 1930s when they were neighbours in Montparnasse, and went on to act as his principal dealer in London, regularly including his work in annual group exhibitions and selling to international clients. Highlights include the plaster Diego au chandail, 1954, shown in Giacometti’s 1996–97 retrospective at the Royal Academy; the bronze Buste d’Annette IV, 1962, one of eight busts of his wife made between 1962 and 1965 which is on public display for the first time in almost 50 years; and Femme qui marche (I), executed in 1932 in plaster and loaned by Fondation Giacometti, Paris. Formerly in Brausen’s personal collection, it was cast in bronze under the artist’s supervision and donated by them to Tate in 1972. Brausen’s devotion to the artist extended to wearing a bracelet he designed for Elsa Schiaparelli from 1940 until her death; an identical piece is included on loan from Kunsthaus Zrich, alongside Buste d’homme, 1953, a two-sided pen-and-ink work formerly in her private collection.
Another key artist championed by Brausen was Germaine Richier (1902–1959), the most important female sculptor in Europe of the pre- and post-war period. Like Giacometti, Richier trained under Antoine Bourdelle in Paris in the 1920s and like him focused on raw structure and physical presence. The exhibition includes La Tauromachie, 1953, exhibited at the Hanover Gallery in 1954; La Sauterelle, moyenne, conceived in 1945 and cast under the artist’s instruction in 1960; L’Ogre, conceived in 1949 and cast in 1962; and L’Oiseau, c.1954, also loaned by the Sainsbury Centre. The institution has also loaned Petite Construction, 1957, by Jean Fautrier (1898–1964), purchased from Hanover in 1959 by Sir Robert Sainsbury.
Brausen was also an early champion of young British artists, including Lucian Freud (1922–2011), who held solo exhibitions at Hanover in 1950 and 1952. From this period comes Girl in Bed, 1953, a tender portrait of the Irish writer Caroline Blackwood in the Htel La Louisiane, where she and Freud stayed after eloping to Paris. Other artists include Richard Hamilton (1922–2011), who had major shows at Hanover in 1955 and 1964, the latter of which included Epiphany, 1964; William Turnbull (1922–2012), whose first major exhibition took place in 1950 and included Hanging Sculpture, 1949; and fellow Scot Eduardo Paolozzi (1924–2005), represented by Shattered Head, 1956, first shown at Hanover that year. The exhibition also includes Graham Sutherland’s (1903–1980) charcoal portrait of Arthur Jeffress, Hanover’s initial backer. Sutherland introduced Brausen to Bacon, and was the subject of the gallery’s inaugural exhibition.
Hanover Gallery was also an important platform for female, queer, and migr artists in the post-war years. In 1953, it hosted the first solo exhibition of Marlow Moss (1889–1958), the cross-dressing lesbian artist who studied under Fernand Lger and whose works are now celebrated for their influential relationship with Piet Mondrian. The exhibition included Construction Spatial, 1953, shown here alongside four works on paper. Other female artists include Niki de Saint-Phalle (1930–2002), whose first UK exhibition took place at the gallery in 1964 and who is represented by Be My Frankenstein, 1964; and American Liliane Lijn (b. 1939), whose first UK solo show was held in 1970 and who is represented by Koancut, 1969, on loan from the artist.
“Between 1950 and 1970, the Hanover Gallery… was the first port of call in London for anyone wishing to know what was new and good in art.” -- THE TIMES, 29 DECEMBER 1992
Erica Brausen was born in Dsseldorf in 1908. She left Germany in 1930 against the backdrop of rising Nazism and moved to Paris where she became part of a thriving art scene, befriending artists including Georges Braque, Fernand Lger and Alberto Giacometti. Through her friendship with Joan Mir, she moved to Mallorca in 1935 where she ran a caf-bar frequented by artists and writers, but fled the Franco regime two years later, travelling to England on a fishing boat. While working at the Redfern Gallery in London in the 1940s, she decided to open her own space and, backed by the financial support of the art collector Arthur Jeffress (1905–1961) and the artists Peter and Elsa Barker-Mill, she established the Hanover Gallery at 32a St George’s Street, opening in June 1948 with a solo show of Graham Sutherland. In 1953, Jeffress and Barker-Mill’s interest was acquired by the financier Michael Behrens (1911–1989).
It was Sutherland who had encouraged Brausen to visit the studio of his friend, Francis Bacon, and her early support was pivotal to his success. In 1948, she facilitated the sale of Bacon’s Painting 1946, to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York — his first work to enter a major museum collection — and the following year, she hosted the artist’s first solo exhibition at the Hanover Gallery. She supported the artist until 1958, hosting seven solo shows, while overseeing the most formative period in Bacon’s career, thereby shaping his international and institutional repute.
As the UK government relaxed wartime import restrictions in the late 1940s, Brausen used her international connections to bring the work of major artists to London, including Alberto Giacometti, Germaine Richier, Jean Fautrier, Leonor Fini, Ren Magritte, Henri Matisse and Max Ernst, while also championing British artists including Henry Moore, Isabel Rawsthorne, Lucian Freud and William Scott. Between 1948 and 1973, the Hanover Gallery was the go-to destination for anyone with an interest in art, hosting around 300 exhibitions, and welcoming a host of notable visitors including Stanley Kubrick, Cecil Beaton, Peter Brook, Lee Radziwill, Mike Nichols, Rudolf Nureyev, the Beatles and Princess Margaret. In 1962, in partnership with storied art dealership Gimpel Fils, Brausen also opened Gimpel & Hanover Galerie in Zurich which staged approximately 50 exhibitions until its closure in 1984.
Brausen lived and worked alongside her long-term partner Catharina ‘Toto’ Koopman, a bisexual Dutch-Javanese model, muse, spy and socialite with whom she lived openly for over 40 years. Koopman had been a Chanel model and Vogue cover girl in 1930s Paris, during which time she also had a string of high-profile affairs. She became an Allied spy in Italy during World War II where she was captured, escaped, and recaptured, eventually being sent to Ravensbrck concentration camp. In 1945, while recuperating on the coast of Lake Maggiore, she met Erica Brausen; they remained together until Koopman’s death in 1991. Erica Brausen died in London only a few months later in 1992.
