July this year marks the end of an era for me as the Royal Opera Arcade galleries, La Galleria and the Royal Opera Arcade Gallery, in Pall Mall are closing down. Elizabeth Mitchell D’Anna, the charismatic owner of these businesses over the last 14 years, has become a good friend to Christine and me during this time and worked tirelessly for all the artists, other clients and visitors to the exhibitions and events staged there.
Since the opening of the galleries Elizabeth has encouraged and supported young artists by showing their work and taken on students as interns and assistants to curate and run exhibitions, training them to choose, promote, hang and run shows and, some years ago even allowed me to be educated and work as a volunteer in the galleries for a while. Trainees were able to gain experience in packing and unpacking fragile and sometimes heavy paintings, sculpture and ceramics, using social media, promotion and marketing techniques to sell artist’s works. Some of these interns have now progressed to become brilliant visual artists and here is one of them with a highly successful career, Amber Anderson.
Dealing with customers and fellow artists needs tact, good humour, shrewd judgement and diplomacy (as does pricing a work!) Elizabeth’s contacts and vast experience in running various businesses are invaluable and her knowledge of art and music led to many fascinating conversations. Her life story would make a great film!
After a while, and having developed my friendship with Elizabeth, I managed to sell a few works from the Royal Opera Arcade Gallery and La Galleria and received several commissions.
More recently, the annual Royal Arts Prize has proved a successful platform for visual artists to advance their careers.
Some of the commercial Art galleries in Mayfair and other parts of London can be quite intimidating and not particularly welcoming to unknown or aspiring artists and visitors, but La Galleria and the ROA Gallery have always been just the opposite! Elizabeth, her family members and support staff have been kind, generous, and really helpful during the hours I have spent in their company. The following picture shows a number of the artists who tool part in the Summer 2015 Group Show.
I decided to show two fairly large landscapes that year and chose this one of the Cathedral in Zaragoza, Spain which contains some of Goya’s earliest works.
On behalf of all artists, we wish Elizabeth a very happy and much less stressful time as she moves on from the responsibility of running and maintaining these prestigious art galleries in Central London. We also thank her for the dedication and long hours spent working on behalf of all the artists who have exhibited at her galleries. Apart from her family and close friends Elizabeth has many other interests and is planning to develop some of them. She is also a dog lover and takes care of two charming French Bulldogs, Blue and Kai who are shown below outside the galleries. They are the inspiration for another of her business interests which is known as Blue-Dog Atelier.
The last eighteen months have been difficult for all of us, particularly Elizabeth, but she is a survivor who has overcome adversity in the past, and is already making plans for her next ventures. That’s the story so far, so I’m intrigued to know what lies ahead for this very talented entrepreneur and look forward to hearing or reading about the next chapter in Elizabeth’s life.