Marlborough Fine Art was founded in 1946 by the Viennese emigrants Harry Fischer (né Heinrich Robert Fischer, 1903–1977) and Frank Lloyd (né Franz Kurt Levai, 1911–1998) in the Mayfair district. Lloyd’s parents were antique dealers; he himself worked in the oil business and amassed a private collection of modern art at an early age. He left this behind when he emigrated from Austria to Paris. After the occupation of France, Lloyd was interned. However, he managed to escape and make his way to London, where he was interned again as an enemy alien at Prees Heath Camp (Summers 2019). Harry Fischer ran an antiquarian bookshop and a publishing house in Vienna. After the so-called Anschluss, he arrived in London via Zagreb in 1939 (McEwan 1987, 74) and was also temporarily interned after the outbreak of war. Fischer and Lloyd met in the British army. Fischer worked at St. George’s Gallery, which had existed since 1943 and was run by the Viennese émigré Lea Bondi Jaray (Summers 2019).

In 1946, Harry Fischer and Frank Lloyd founded their own business in Bond Street: the name Marlborough Fine Art was chosen because of its aristocratic connotations (Shirey 1973) – so, from the beginning, one aim was to attract a solvent prestige-conscious clientele. In 1948 David Somerset, later Duke of Beaufort, joined the gallery as a partner. With Somerset, Marlborough Fine Arts gained access to the aristocracy and private collectors who wanted to sell or acquire works (Anonymous 1959; Williamson 2017). Lloyd’s art collection, which he was able to locate in Vienna, formed the fundament for early gallery activities.
Initially, Marlborough Fine Art focused on a modernism already established in London, dealing in French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, for example, with exhibitions of August Renoir's paintings (1951), Gustave Courbet (1953), Mary Cassat (1953) and Constantin Guys (1956). Guys was a painter of modern life appreciated by Charles Baudelaire during his lifetime, but rarely shown in London. Lillian Browse of the Roland, Browse & Delbanco gallery published a relevant monograph with Faber & Faber in 1946 (Browse 1946). Marlborough Fine Art then gave Guys a presence in the city ten years later through an exhibition. International Classical Modernism was also present at Marlborough Fine Art, including works by Fernand Léger (1954) and Pablo Picasso (1954/55).

From the early 1950s onwards – once the gallery had established and proved itself in the London art market – Marlborough Fine Art additionally developed a contemporary programme with a focus on British and international art and sculptors such as Henry Moore (1961) and Barbara Hepworth (1966), painters such as Jackson Pollock (1961), Graham Sutherland (1962), Lucian Freud (1963), R.B. Kitaj (1963) and Frank Auerbach (1967).
In 1957 Marlborough Fine Art presented the Between space and earth: trends in modern Italian art exhibition, whose catalogue cover was designed by Lucio Fontana. From 1959, Marlborough Fine Art represented the painter Francis Bacon, whose career had previously been built by Erica Brausen and the Hanover Gallery. Erica Brausen had also worked at St. George’s Gallery and knew Lloyd and Fischer from that time.

From the early 1960s, contemporary positions were presented at the gallery’s founding site, 17– 18 Bond Street, under the name Marlborough New London Gallery, while classical modernism was presented at an additional new site at 39 Bond Street (Carritt 1961). There, Lloyd, Fischer and Somerset excelled with exhibitions of German-speaking artists, showing Gabriele Münter (1960), Wassily Kandinsky (1961) and Kurt Schwitters (1963). In 1966, Homage to Kokoschka opened, its exhibition catalogue enclosed in a transparent cover on which a self-portrait of Oskar Kokoschka (1965) was printed.
Marlborough Fine Art was instrumental in establishing German modern art in 1959 with Art in Revolt. Germany 1905–25. Exhibition of Aid in World Refugee Year. In 1959, the UN proclaimed a World Refugee Year to draw attention to the situation in refugee camps. By hosting the Art in Revolt exhibition during World Refugee Year, Marlborogh Fine Art placed German modernism – similar to the 20th Century German Art show of 1938 at New Burlington Galleries – in the context of political art under threat. In 1962, Marlborough Fine Art presented the Painters of the Bauhaus exhibition.
In 1963, the gallery opened a branch in New York, which contributed significantly to the recognition of American Abstract Expressionism (O'Doherty 1963). Marlborough Fine Art was also present with its own spaces in Rome, Zurich, Toronto and Montreal.
In the early 1970s, gallery founders Harry Fischer and Frank Lloyd withdrew from their gallery. Fischer then founded the Fischer Fine Art gallery, which existed until 1992. Frank Lloyd’s descendants continue to run Marlborough Fine Art in London and other cities.

By acting strategically from the beginning, Marlborough Fine Art was able to contribute significantly to the establishment of contemporary art: Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art was already established in London through exhibitions and publications, so they had less trouble making a name for themselves with this art movement. Moreover, through David Somerset, they had close ties to aristocratic circles and thus to private collections of Impressionist art (Williamson 2017). Their growing recognition as gallery owners and art dealers then laid the foundation for a riskier commitment: on the one hand, to the art of their time and progressive artists such as Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, while, on the other hand, they were also able to advocate continental German-language modernism, which had only gained acceptance in England since the late 1950s. Until her death in 1954, the art historian Rosa Schapire, for example, had often struggled in vain for the recognition of Expressionist art in London.