Godfrey Pilkington

Jul 12 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

IN HIS background, there was the money made by window-cutters in Glass Town, but the man with a knapsack on his back, whose flapping mac was belted by string, as he bicycled through the streets of London, had a wider view of the world.

It is in this way that friends like to remember the man who expressed his own values with these words. “I believe art is for pleasure. Hedonism may be too frivolous a creed for this tortured generation. Happy are they for whom it is sufficient.”

On July 3, that philosophy was given formal recognition when the Rainford Gallery, near St Helens, was formally renamed the Godfrey Pilkington Gallery.

Sadly, the man himself was not well enough to attend the ceremony and his sister, Elisabeth Ratiu, spoke on his behalf.

Five weeks earlier, the Piccadilly Gallery, which he had opened with his wife, Eve, in 1953 had closed, much to the sorrow of art-lovers.

Pilkington was the grandson of a founder of the glass company. His parents, Colonel Guy and Margery Pilkington, brought him up at the family home Fairfield, near St Helens.

From Clifton School, he advanced to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read English, before joining the Royal Artillery, serving in coastal defences during the war.

Later he was transferred to the Royal Cheshire Regiment for the Italian campaign. Italy stirred his love for art: “The stuff was all around,” he noted.

Although Pilkington joined the family business, his growing enthusiasm for art carried him to London, where in 1947 he began working for the fine art dealers, Frost and Reed. During this time, he married Eve Vincent and they opened their own shop in bomb-damaged premises on Piccadilly Arcade in 1953, moving to Cork Street the following year.

In addition to the shop, which moved to Dover Street in 1999, Pilkington was, in the 1950s, a major contributor to the magazine Pictures and Prints.

He also wrote the booklet 50 Facts on Art, published by the Fine Art Trade Guild, which sold half a million copies.

Pilkington was an influential figure in the promotion of art in St Helens and a trustee and founding chairman of the Rainford Trust, a family charity, which supported an annual art competition.

He is survived by his wife and four children.

Godfrey Pilkington, art dealer; born November 8, 1918, died July 8, 2007.