The Johannesburg Art Gallery is an art gallery in

Joubert Park Joubert Park is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in Region 8. The suburb shares its name with the largest park in the Central Business District, which is located a few blocks from the main train station for the city (known a ...

in the city centre of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

, South Africa. It is the largest gallery on the continent with a collection that is larger than that of the

Iziko South African National Gallery The Iziko South African National Gallery is the national art gallery of South Africa located in Cape Town. It became part of the Iziko collection of museums – as managed by the Department of Arts and Culture – in 2001. It then became an agenc ...

in Cape Town. The building, which was completed in 1915, was designed by

Sir Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memoria ...

, with Robert Howden working as supervising architect, and consists of 15 exhibition halls and sculpture gardens. It houses collections of 17th-century Dutch paintings, 18th- and 19th-century British and European art, 19th-century South African works, a large contemporary collection of 20th-century local and international art, and a print cabinet containing works from the 15th century to the present.

Collection

The initial collection was put together by

Sir Hugh Lane Sir Hugh Percy Lane (9 November 1875 – 7 May 1915) was an Irish art dealer, collector and gallery director. He is best known for establishing Dublin's Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (the first known public gallery of modern art in the ...

, and exhibited in London in 1910 before being brought to South Africa.

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

, Lady Phillips, an art collector and wife of mining magnate

Lionel Phillips Sir Lionel Phillips, 1st Baronet (6 August 1855 – 2 July 1936) was a British people, British-born South African financier, Mining Magnate, mining magnate and politician. Early life Phillips was born in London on 6 August 1855 to Phillip Phi ...

, established the first gallery collection using funds donated by her husband. Lady Phillips donated her lace collection and arranged for her husband to donate seven oil paintings and a Rodin sculpture to the collection. Some other small water drawings that collected through various Galleries thought to be less valuable and have being sold for collecting funds during the late 1950s and 1960s . In 1940, Johannesburg Art Gallery became the first South African gallery to purchase a work of art by a black artist, acquirin
Yellow Houses
by

Gerard Sekoto Gerard Sekoto (9 December 1913 – 20 March 1993), was a South African artist and musician. He is recognised as a pioneer of urban black art and social realism. His work was exhibited in Paris, Stockholm, Venice, Washington, and Senegal, as wel ...

. Since then, it has increasingly sought to address the colonial imbalances of its collection. The current collection includes works by

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, Camille Pissarro,

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...

, Herbert Ward and

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

, and South Africans such as

, Walter Battiss,

Alexis Preller Alexis Preller (6 September 1911 – 13 December 1975) was a South African painter. He trained at the Westminster School of Art from which he graduated in 1934 and later at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris (1937). He was especia ...

Maud Sumner Maud Frances Eyston Sumner (1902–1985) was a South African artist. Sumner was born in Johannesburg, Transvaal Colony. After completing her schooling at Roedean in Johannesburg, she studied literature at Oxford University from 1922 to 1925 and t ...

, Sydney Kumalo,

Ezrom Legae Ezrom Legae (1938–1999) was a South African sculptor and draughtsman. Born in Vrededorp, Johannesburg, Legae studied at the Polly Street Art Centre beginning in 1959; from 1960 until 1964 he attended the Jubilee Art Centre and worked with C ...

and

Pierneef Jacobus Hendrik (Henk) Pierneef (usually referred to as Pierneef) (13 August 1886 Pretoria – 4 October 1957 Pretoria), was a South African landscape artist, generally considered to be one of the best of the old South African masters. His distin ...

. It also houses an extensive collection of the work of contemporary local artists.

History

The Johannesburg Art Gallery collection was opened to the public in 1910, before the gallery itself had been built, and was housed at the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...

. The architect,

, came to South Africa in 1910 to examine the site and begin the designs, after Lady Florence Phillips had secured funding from the city for a purpose-built museum. The building was built with a south-facing entrance, but was not completed according to the architect's designs—no part of the museum was broken down to let in the light. It was opened to the public, without ceremony, in 1915, just after the start of the First World War. The gallery was extended during the 1940s with east-west wings along the south galleries according to the Lutyens' design. The present north facade and galleries, constructed during the 1986–87 extension were designed by

Meyer Pienaar and Associates Meyer may refer to: People *Meyer (surname), listing people so named * Meyer (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the name Companies * Meyer Burger, a Swiss mechanical engineering company * Meyer Corporation * Meyer Sound Labo ...

. In recent years the building has been poorly maintained, with many gallery halls closed and notable artworks removed from display.

Neighbourhood engagement

As a major focus of urban regeneration programmes, the gallery used to provide the base for the Joubert Park Public Art Project. Today it is developing links with community centres based in the surrounding area.

Chief curators

* P Anton Hendriks (1937–1964) * Nel Erasmus (1964–1977) * Pat Senior (1977–1983) * Christopher Till (1983–1991) * Rochelle Keene (1991–2003) * Clive Kellner (2004–2008) * Antoinette Murdoch (2009 – January 2017) * Musha Nehuleni (acting curator, January 2017 – Dec 2018) * Khwezi Gule (2019–present) http://www.702.co.za/articles/292579/meet-johannesburg-art-gallery-s-new-curator-khwezi-gule

Thefts

* June 2002 ''St Thomas'' by

El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...

. * August 2002 ''Suitcase'' by

Kendell Geers Jacobus Hermanus Pieters Geers, commonly known as Kendell Geers, is a South African conceptual artist. Geers lives and works in Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text ...

. Sculpture recovered in a damaged state. * 1990s ''Talion'' by Gavin Younge. This large cast-bronze sculpture was commissioned by the gallery as part of its centenary celebrations in 1986. Thieves stole it by cutting bits off using a portable generator and an angle grinder fitted with a metal-cutting disc. Despite an insurance payout, the gallery never recast the missing sections. * January 2011 ''General Hoche'' by

Jules Dalou Aimé-Jules Dalou (31 December 183815 April 1902) was a 19th-century French sculptor, admired for his perceptiveness, execution, and unpretentious realism. Early life Born in Paris to a working-class family of Huguenot background, he was raised ...

. *September 2011 ''Mourning Woman'' by Sydney Kumalo, ''Peter Pan'' by

Romano Romanelli Romano Romanelli (14 May 1882 – 25 September 1968) was an Italian artist, writer, and naval officer. He is best known for his sculptures and his medals. Romanelli was born in Florence, the son of sculptor Raffaello Romanelli. Romano's wor ...

and ''King of the Universe'' by Ernest Ullman.

References