Established | 1885 (original), 1999 (current) |
---|---|
Location | Moorgate area, City of London, England |
Coordinates | 51°30′56″N0°05′29″W / 51.5155°N 0.0914°W |
Type | Art museum |
Collection size | About 4,000 items |
Architect | Richard Gilbert Scott (current building) |
The Guildhall Art Gallery houses the art collection of the City of London, England. The museum is located in the Moorgate area of the City of London. It is a stone building in a semi-Gothic style intended to be sympathetic to the historic Guildhall, which is adjacent and to which it is connected internally.
The City of London Corporation had commissioned and collected portraits since 1670, originally to hang in the Guildhall. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Corporation's art collections grew through gifts and bequests to include history paintings and other genres of art. [1]
The first purpose-built gallery for displaying the collection was completed in 1885 . This building was destroyed in The Blitz in 1941, resulting in the loss of 164 paintings, drawings, watercolours, and prints, and 20 sculptures. [2] It was not until 1985 that the City of London Corporation decided to redevelop the site and build a new gallery. The building was designed in a postmodern style by the British architect Richard Gilbert Scott. [3] [4] The new facility, which was intended to house a collection of about 4,000 items, was completed in 1999 . [5]
The centrepiece of the collection, John Singleton Copley's huge painting depicting The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar , was placed in a prominent position in the entrance hall of the gallery. [6]
Vivien Knight was head of the Gallery, from 1983 until her death in 2009. [7]
The Guildhall complex was built on the site of London's Roman amphitheatre, and some of the remains of this are displayed in situ in a room in the basement of the art gallery. [8]
Sir John Gilbert was an English artist, illustrator and engraver.
Sir Peter Thomas Blake is an English pop artist. He co-created the sleeve design for the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. His other works include the covers for two of The Who's albums, the cover of the Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", and the Live Aid concert poster. Blake also designed the 2012 Brit Award statuette.
Gilbert Stuart was an American painter born in the Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washington, begun in 1796, which is usually referred to as the Athenaeum Portrait. Stuart retained the original and used it to paint scores of copies that were commissioned by patrons in America and abroad. The image of George Washington featured in the painting has appeared on the United States one-dollar bill for more than a century and on various postage stamps of the 19th century and early 20th century.
General George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield, was a Scottish officer of the British Army, who served in three major wars during the 18th century. He rose to distinction during the Seven Years' War when he fought in Germany and participated in the British attacks on Belle Île (France) and Cuba. Eliott is most notable for his command of the Gibraltar garrison during the Great Siege of Gibraltar, which lasted from 1779 to 1783, during the American War of Independence. He was celebrated for his successful defence of the fortress and decisive defeat of Spanish and French attackers.
Jacques Joseph Tissot, better known as James Tissot, was a French painter, illustrator, and caricaturist. He was born to a drapery merchant and a milliner and decided to pursue a career in art at a young age, coming to incorporate elements of realism, early Impressionism, and academic art into his work. He is best known for a variety of genre paintings of contemporary European high society produced during the peak of his career, which focused on the people and women's fashion of the Belle Époque and Victorian England, but he would also explore many medieval, biblical, and Japoniste subjects throughout his life. His career included work as a caricaturist for Vanity Fair under the pseudonym of Coïdé.
John Atkinson Grimshaw was an English Victorian-era artist best known for his nocturnal scenes of urban landscapes. He was called a "remarkable and imaginative painter" by the critic and historian Christopher Wood in Victorian Painting (1999).
Events from the year 1789 in art.
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum is located in New London, Connecticut, and was founded in 1926 by Lyman Allyn's daughter Harriet Upson Allyn. Its collection includes European and non-Western art as well as American fine and decorative art, 17th-century European works on paper, 19th-century American paintings, and contemporary art. The museum also conducts educational programs.
A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881 is a painting by the English artist William Powell Frith exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1883. It depicts a group of distinguished Victorians visiting the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1881, just after the death of the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, whose portrait by John Everett Millais was included on a screen at the special request of Queen Victoria. The room is Gallery III, the largest and most imposing room at Burlington House.
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar is the title of a 1791 oil-on-canvas painting by Boston-born American artist John Singleton Copley. It depicts a coastal view of the naval action of the Great Siege of Gibraltar, part of the European theatre of the American Revolutionary War. The Spanish Empire's infamous floating batteries lie crippled and aflame in the background, while the shoreward waters are choked with surrendering Spaniards. The British rescue efforts are commanded from horseback by the Governor of Gibraltar, General George Augustus Eliott.
The Sortie Made by the Garrison of Gibraltar is a 1789 oil-on-canvas painting by American artist John Trumbull. The painting shows a key point in Gibraltar's history when the Great Siege of Gibraltar was undertaken by the Spanish against the British at Gibraltar in November 1781. The Spanish officer Don Jose de Barboza is being given respect as he lies dying. Although left behind by his own retreating troops, he still unsuccessfully attacked the British troops with chivalry.
George Carter (1737–1794) was an English artist who described himself as a "historical portrait painter". He visited Italy in the company of John Singleton Copley, who had a significant influence on his work, and spent some time in India.
The Death of Major Peirson, 6 January 1781 is a large oil painting executed in 1783 by the Anglo-American artist John Singleton Copley. It depicts the death of Major Francis Peirson at the Battle of Jersey on 6 January 1781, part of the Anglo-French War (1778–1783).
General Sir William Green, 1st Baronet was a British Army officer, of Marass, Kent. He served as chief engineer at the Great Siege of Gibraltar.
James Jefferys was a British engraver and painter. His work was reassessed in the 1970s following the discovery of a lost set of drawings in Maidstone.
Henry Jamyn Brooks (1839–1925) was a British painter, particularly known for his pictures of meetings and events, in which many individuals are personally identifiable. He painted royalty, and portraits of civic leaders and military people, and was also a photographer.
No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990 was a major public art and archives exhibition, the first of its kind in the UK, held at the Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London, over a six-month period, with a future digital touring exhibition, and an associated programme of events. No Colour Bar took its impetus from the life work and archives of Jessica Huntley and Eric Huntley, Guyanese-born campaigners, political activists and publishers, who founded the publishing company Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications and the associated Walter Rodney Bookshop.
Vivien Margaret Knight, was a British art historian and gallerist, and the head of the Guildhall Art Gallery, from 1983 until her death.
The Battle of Camperdown is a 1799 history painting by the American-born painter John Singleton Copley. It depicts the conclusion to the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October 1797, which was fought in the North Sea between fleets of the Royal Navy and the Batavian Navy during the War of the First Coalition. A decisive British victory, Copley's painting shows British Admiral Adam Duncan accepting the surrender of the Batavian Admiral Jan Willem de Winter. Its full title is The Surrender of the Dutch Admiral de Winter to Admiral Duncan at the Battle of Camperdown.