A couple who run two art galleries have won five customer-nominated awards in the space of a few months.
Andrew and Kathryn Cartwright, who own the Wingates Gallery stores in Leicester and Market Harborough, were named best family-owned retail art gallery in the Midlands in the SME News 海角视频 Enterprise Awards 2021.
Wingates also collected an SME News art connoisseur customer service award, and was named best sculpture artwork gallery in the East Midlands in the SME News Midlands Enterprise Awards.
They were also named best sculpture artwork gallery in the East Midlands in the Global Business Awards 2021 and earlier in the year were chosen as best art gallery in Leicestershire and Rutland in the Muddy Stilettos Awards 2021.
The couple said they were delighted to win the awards.
Mr Cartwright said: “We are not running these galleries to win awards, but it is always lovely when our efforts are recognised in this way especially when they are nominated by our fantastic customers.
“The awards are reward for all the hard work and dedication that we and our team put into the business.
“Like many businesses we have had a challenging time trying to keep going throughout the lockdown caused by the pandemic, but it made us look at our business differently providing our customers with a collection that cannot be found anywhere else.”
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An SME News spokesperson said: “Run by husband-and-wife duo Andrew and Kathryn Cartwright, the dedicated and enthusiastic team at Wingates Gallery prides itself on extending a warm and friendly welcome to all customers, offering great service, a fantastic choice of original and limited-edition art and handmade sculpture, while allowing visitors space to come and enjoy the art on display, in their own time.”
The couple took over the Market Harborough gallery in 2017 and then opened another gallery in Leicester in September 2019.
Mr Cartwright said: “Six months later we had to close down due to the lockdown.
“We reopened the Leicester gallery last month, and the Market Harborough one in April, and the future looks bright.
“Throughout the lockdown we had to be creative to survive.
“We had thousands of brochures printed and delivered taking our gallery to our customer’s doorstep as they could not come to us.
“We also set up drive-by viewings where people drove into our car park in Market Harborough and stayed in their vehicles while we showed them works of art at the gallery front door.
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“We also gave tours of the gallery on FaceTime and Zoom.
“Top quality customer service is a key facet of what we do here.
“These new ways of reaching our customers resulted in us sharing a closer relationship with them.
“Our aim is to take art to the people and we think this is what we have done since we took over the gallery four years ago.
“Winning these awards is a great boost for the team and means we must be doing something right.”
The gallery in Loseby Lane, Leicester has more than 130 pieces of original art by 32 artists, while there are more than 340 pieces of art – mainly original work including paintings, sculpture, and ceramics – from 49 artists at the gallery in St Mary’s Road in Market Harborough.