Lucy Wertheim (1883-1971) was a hugely well respected London art dealer and gallery owner. Amongst many others she represented and showed Christopher Wood, Cedric Morris and Alfred Wallis. She opened her first gallery at 3-5 Burlington Gardens, directly behind the Royal Academy.

Having fallen on hard times in the 1920s Gibb was thankfully rediscovered by Wertheim in the early 1930s. He would go on to have a number of exhibitions with her and she would help to support and reinvigorate his market. She would later write in her biography that...

'The English artist still living whose work probably is of the most permanent value is Phelan Gibb. One day Phelan Gibb will doubtless come into his own, and his finest paintings take their place alongside examples of Manet, Cezanne, Picasso, … in international exhibitions of Modern Art'