Angela Flowers
Angela Mary Flowers was a British gallerist who founded Flowers Gallery, a commercial art gallery that today operates in London, New York City, and Hong Kong. A director of the gallery, she was based between Ramsgate in Kent and Cork in Ireland.
Education and career
Born on 19 December 1932 in Croydon, Angela Holland was the elder of two daughters of Geoffrey and Olive Holland. Her great grandfather founded The Croydon Advertiser. During World War II, her father worked as a fireman on the River Thames, then in military intelligence and her mother worked in a munitions factory in Herefordshire. During this time, Angela was sent to a boarding school founded by war artist Eric Kennington. She then went to Westonbirt School in Kent, followed by Wychwood School in Oxford and a diploma at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She later worked as an au pair in Paris.In 1952, aged 19, she met fashion and portrait photographer Adrian Flowers, marrying him seven weeks later. In an interview she recalled, "I met Adrian in the January and proposed to him in the February because it was leap year... and we got married a few weeks later." She studied drama and music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, performed some music and acting work - she played a Dagenham Girl Piper in the first Benny Hill film, Who Done It? - and also worked in advertising.
Her arts career began following a family holiday in St Ives, where they met many of the resident artists. Her husband began taking pictures of the artworks and artists for catalogues and together they began collecting art, with a particular focus on emerging British artists.
Personal life
Angela and Adrian Flowers had four children. Matthew Flowers, her second son, worked on and off for the gallery from 1970 until 1983 when he moved to the business full time. He became its managing director in 1989. Flowers's youngest son, Daniel married sculptor Nicola Hicks, a long-time gallery client.In 1970, Angela Flowers met the writer and business journalist Robert Heller. Already an art collector, he helped manage the gallery. She and Adrian Flowers divorced in 1972, and she and Heller stayed together. In 1999, she said "We've been together 29 years now and I'm still hoping to get married. Perhaps I'll ask him next year, which is a leap year." They married in 2003 and he died in 2012, having earlier developed Parkinson's disease; in 2009, they had moved from Highgate in north London to Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.
Angela and Robert had a daughter, Rachel Heller, born on 15 September 1973 with Down's syndrome. Rachel became an artist but was represented by another gallery.