Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. A ...

Mosley Street Mosley Street is a street in Manchester, England. It runs between its junction with Piccadilly Gardens and Market Street to St Peter's Square. Beyond St Peter's Square it becomes Lower Mosley Street. It is the location of several Grade II and G ...

Manchester city centre Manchester City Centre is the central business district of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England situated within the confines of Great Ancoats Street, A6042 Trinity Way, and A57(M) Mancunian Way which collectively form an inner ring road. ...

. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupies three connected buildings, two of which were designed by Sir Charles Barry. Both Barry's buildings are

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

. The building that links them was designed by

Hopkins Architects Hopkins Architects (formerly Michael Hopkins and Partners) is a prominent British architectural firm established by architects Sir Michael and Patricia, Lady Hopkins. Background The practice was established in 1976 by Michael and Patty Hopkins ...

following an

architectural design competition An architectural design competition is a type of design competition in which an organization that intends on constructing a new building invites architects to submit design proposals. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel ...

managed by

RIBA Competitions RIBA Competitions is the Royal Institute of British Architects' unit dedicated to organising architectural and other design-related competitions. Architectural design competitions are used by an organisation that plans to build a new building or re ...

. It opened in 2002 following a major renovation and expansion project undertaken by the art gallery. Manchester Art Gallery is free to enter and open six days a week, closed Mondays It houses many works of local and international significance and has a collection of more than 25,000 objects. More than half a million people visited the museum in the period of a year, according to figures released in April 2014.

History

Royal Manchester Institution

The

Royal Manchester Institution The Royal Manchester Institution (RMI) was an England, English learned society founded on 1 October 1823 at a public meeting held in the Exchange Room by Manchester merchants, local artists and others keen to dispel the image of Manchester as a ...

was a scholarly society formed in 1823. It was housed in what is now the art gallery's main gallery building on Mosley Street. The first object acquired for its collection,

James Northcote James Northcote (22 October 1746, in Plymouth – 13 July 1831, in London) was a British painter. Life and work Northcote was born in Plymouth, and was apprenticed to his father, Samuel Northcote, a watchmaker. In his spare time, he drew and ...

's ''A Moor'' (a portrait of the celebrated black actor Ira Aldridge), was bought in 1827. The Royal Manchester Institution opened its galleries to the public ten years after its formation and subsequently held regular art exhibitions, collected works of fine art and promoted the arts from the 1820s until 1882 when its premises and collections were transferred under Act of Parliament to

Manchester Corporation Manchester City Council is the local authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester is the sixth largest city in England by population. Its city council is composed of 96 councillors, three f ...

, becoming Manchester Art Gallery. The institution was handed over on condition that £2000 per annum would be spent on art for the next 20 years. The Art Gallery Committee bought enthusiastically and by the end of the 19th century had accrued an impressive collection of fine art, added to by gifts and bequests from wealthy Mancunian industrialists. On 3 April 1913 three women (

Lillian Williamson Lillian Forrester ( Williamson; born 1879) was a British suffragette who led an attack on the Manchester Art Gallery. Life She was born Lillian Williamson in 1879, and was the second daughter of Arthur Williamson, a commercial clerk, and Eliza ...

Evelyn Manesta Evelyn Manesta (born ) was a British suffragette. There are few details about her birth or death but she is known for being identified as dangerous after attacking Manchester Art Gallery. Life (details known) Along with Lillian Forrester and An ...

, and Annie Briggs) staged a protest in favour of

women's suffrage in the United Kingdom A movement to fight for women's right to vote in the United Kingdom finally succeeded through acts of Parliament in 1918 and 1928. It became a national movement in the Victorian era. Women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britai ...

. They broke the glass of thirteen paintings including two by

John Everett Millais Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, ( , ; 8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest ...

and two by

George Frederick Watts George Frederic Watts (23 February 1817, in London – 1 July 1904) was a British painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical wor ...

. Four of the paintings were damaged by the broken glass. Williamson was sent to jail for three months and Manesta for one.

Governance

The gallery is operated by Manchester City Galleries, a department of

Manchester City Council Manchester City Council is the local authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester is the sixth largest city in England by population. Its city council is composed of 96 councillors, three ...

which is also responsible for Platt Hall

Platt Hall Platt Fields Park is a large public park in Fallowfield, Manchester, England which is home to Platt Hall. Fallowfield lies to the south and Wilmslow Road runs along its eastern edge. Description The centrepiece of the park is a large pleasure ...

Fallowfield Fallowfield is a suburb of Manchester, England, with a population at the 2011 census of 15,211. Historically in Lancashire, it lies south of Manchester city centre and is bisected east–west by Wilmslow Road and north–south by Wil ...

. Alistair Hudson is the director of the galleries and also director of the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

Whitworth Art Gallery The Whitworth is an art gallery in Manchester, England, containing about 55,000 items in its collection. The gallery is located in Whitworth Park and is part of the University of Manchester. In 2015, the Whitworth reopened after it was transfo ...

. He became joint director in a collaboration between the council and the university in 2018. The gallery's budget is controlled by the council but it also funded by the Manchester Art Gallery Trust, a charity (Registered Charity Number 1048581) that supports its work. The trust raises nearly half the funding required from companies, individuals and grant making trusts and foundations. The gallery is currently open daily and on the first Wednesday of every month opens until 9pm.

Architecture

Former Athenaeum, Princess Street, Manchester

Manchester Art Gallery is housed in three connected buildings. The City Art Gallery building, which faces onto

, was designed and constructed between 1824 and 1835. It originally housed the Royal Manchester Institution. Designed by architect Sir Charles Barry in the Greek Ionic style, the building is now

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The two-storey gallery is built in rusticated

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

to a rectangular plan on a raised

plinth A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In c ...

. The roof is hidden by a continuous

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Reviv ...

led

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and plain

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

. Its eleven-bay facade has two three-bay side ranges and a central five-bay

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

ed projecting

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

with six Ionic columns. Set back behind the parapet is an attic with small windows that forms a

lantern A lantern is an often portable source of lighting, typically featuring a protective enclosure for the light sourcehistorically usually a candle or a wick in oil, and often a battery-powered light in modern timesto make it easier to carry and h ...

above the entrance hall.

Manchester Athenaeum The Athenaeum in Princess Street Manchester, England, now part of Manchester Art Gallery, was originally a club built for the Manchester Athenaeum, a society for the "advancement and diffusion of knowledge", in 1837. The society, founded in 1 ...

, also designed by Barry, was built in 1837 and was bought by the

in 1938 to provide additional space. It is Grade II* listed and designed in the Italian

Palazzo style Palazzo style refers to an architectural style of the 19th and 20th centuries based upon the '' palazzi'' (palaces) built by wealthy families of the Italian Renaissance. The term refers to the general shape, proportion and a cluster of characteri ...

. The Athenaeum fronts onto Princess Street. In November 1994 an

managed by

was launched to refurbish the existing historic gallery and the Athenaeum and link them with a new building on the car park site. The competition attracted 132 architects, six of whom were selected to proceed to the final stage. Michael Hopkins and Partners were announced as winners in January 1995. The gallery closed in 1998 and reopened in 2002 following the £35 million refurbishment and extension. The new extension was criticised as "the splendid and really beautiful interiors of the original building .. have been gratuitously spoiled", and was the 2002 winner of the Sir Hugh Casson Award for the worst new building of the year.

Collections

The gallery has fine art collection consisting of more than 2,000

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

s, 3,000

watercolours Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

and drawings, 250 sculptures, 90 miniatures and around 1,000 prints. It owns more than 13,000 decorative art objects including ceramics, glass, enamels, furniture, metalwork, arms and armour, wallpapers,

doll house A dollhouse or doll's house is a toy home made in miniature. Since the early 20th century dollhouses have primarily been the domain of children, but their collection and crafting is also a hobby for many adults. English-speakers in North America ...

s and related items. The oldest object is an Egyptian

canopic jar Canopus (, ; grc-gre, Κάνωπος, ), also known as Canobus ( grc-gre, Κάνωβος, ), was an ancient Egyptian coastal town, located in the Nile Delta. Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day Alexandria, around from the cent ...

from circa 1100 BC.

Thomas Coglan Horsfall Thomas Coglan Horsfall (1841–1932) was a noted philanthropist, town planner, writer and founder of the Manchester Art Museum in Ancoats Hall (also known as the ''Horsfall Museum'' or ''Ancoats Museum''). Life Horsfall was the son of William ...

's eclectic collection from the

Manchester Art Museum The Manchester Art Museum, also known as the Horsfall Museum or Ancoats Museum, was an art museum in Manchester, England, from 1877 until 1953. It was begun as an educational venture in 1877 by Thomas Coglan Horsfall, who had been inspired by Jo ...

in Ancoats Hall was absorbed into the gallery when the museum closed in 1953. Manchester Art Gallery is strongest in its collection of

Victorian art The Art of the United Kingdom refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with the United Kingdom since the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and encompasses English art, Scottish art, Welsh art and Irish art, and forms ...

, especially that of the

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

, and

Victorian decorative arts Victorian decorative arts refers to the style of decorative arts during the Victorian era. Victorian design is widely viewed as having indulged in a grand excess of ornament. The Victorian era is known for its interpretation and eclectic revival ...

. The gallery houses several works by the French impressionist,

Pierre Adolphe Valette Pierre Adolphe Valette (13 October 1876 – 18 April 1942) was a French Impressionist painter who spent most of his career in England. His most acclaimed paintings are urban landscapes of Manchester, now in the collection of Manchester Ar ...

, who painted and taught in Manchester in the early years of the 20th century; some of his scenes of foggy Manchester streets and canals are displayed. A Cézanne hangs in the same room, showing the similarity in treatment and subject between his misty French river bridge and Valette's bridge in a pre- Clean Air Act Mancunian fog.

L. S. Lowry Laurence Stephen Lowry ( ; 1 November 1887 – 23 February 1976) was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict Pendlebury, Lancashire (where he lived and worked for more than 40 years) as well as Salford and its vicinity ...

was one of Valette's students and the influence on Lowry of impressionism can be seen at the gallery, where paintings by the two artists hang together. The museum houses ''The Picnic'' (1908), a work by the British Impressionist painter Wynford Dewhurst, who was born in Manchester. Annie Swynnerton who was born in

Hulme Hulme () is an inner city area and Ward (politics), electoral ward of Manchester, England, immediately south of Manchester city centre. It has a significant industrial heritage. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, the nam ...

is represented in the collection by 16 paintings and her contemporary at the

Manchester School of Art Manchester School of Art in Manchester, England, was established in 1838 as the Manchester School of Design. It is the second oldest art school in the United Kingdom after the Royal College of Art which was founded the year before. It is now par ...

, Susan Dacre by 17 paintings. As well as paintings. the museum holds collections of glass, silverware and furniture, including four pieces by the Victorian architect and designer

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...

. In January 2018, the gallery took down John William Waterhouse's '' Hylas and the Nymphs'' (1896), leaving an empty space to encourage debate as to how women's bodies should be displayed. Post-it notes were provided for visitors to air their views. The gallery's actions prompted a strong backlash with accusations of censorship, puritanism and political correctness. The museum was "completely taken by surprise by the ferocity of the response" and the painting was rehung after a week's absence. The removal came two months after an unsuccessful campaign to have the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

remove a painting by Balthus of an adolescent girl.

Highlights of collection

Artists

''Dutch School'' :* Backhuysen, Ludolf – 1 painting; :* Borch, Gerard ter – 2 paintings; :* Brekelenkam, Quirijn van – 2 paintings; :*

Jan van de Cappelle Jan van de Cappelle (or Joannes / van der / Capelle in various combinations; 25 January 1626 (baptized) – 22 December 1679 (buried)) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of seascapes and winter landscapes, also notable as an industrialist and ...

– 3 paintings; :* Cuyp, Aelbert – 2 paintings; :* Dou, Gerrit – 1 painting; :* Heem, Jan Janszoon de – 1 painting; :* Hobbema, Meyndert – 1 painting; :* Hooch, Pieter de – 2 paintings; :* Ochtervelt, Jacob – 2 paintings; :* Ostade, Adriaen van – 1 painting; :* Ruysdael, Salomon van – 2 paintings; :* Snyders, Frans – 1 painting; :* Sorgh, Hendrik Martenszoon – 2 paintings; :* Steen, Jan – 1 painting; :* Velde, Adriaen van de – 1 painting; :* Velde the Younger, Willem van de – 2 paintings; 1877 Charles Mengin - Sappho

''English School'' :* Beechey, William – 2 paintings; :* Burra, Edward – 1 painting; :* Constable, John – 1 painting; :* Gainsborough, Thomas – 10 paintings; :* Hogarth, William – 2 paintings; :* Kneller, Sir Godfrey – 1 paintings; :* Landseer, Sir Edwin – 3 paintings; :* Lawrence, Thomas – 1 painting; :* Lely, Peter – 1 painting; :* Lowry, L. S. – 4 paintings; :* Nevinson, C. R. W. – 1 painting; :* Reynolds, Joshua – 4 paintings; :* Souch, John – 1 painting; :* Stubbs, George – 1 paintings; :* Turner, J. M. W. – 1 painting; :* Valette, Pierre Adolphe – 5 paintings; ''Flemish School'' :* Francken the Younger, Frans – 1 painting; :* Teniers the Younger, David – 3 paintings; ''French School'' :* Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille – 2 paintings; :* Degas, Edgar – 1 painting; :* Dughet, Gaspard – 1 painting; :* Gauguin, Eugène Henri Paul – 1 painting; :* Gellée, Claude – 1 painting; :* Mengin, Charles – 1 painting; :* Pissarro, Camille – 1 painting; :* Renoir, Pierre Auguste – 1 painting; :* Vernet, Claude-Joseph – 1 painting; ''German School'' :* Zoffany, Johan – 1 painting; ''Italian School'' :* Daddi, Bernardo – 1 painting; :* Giordano, Luca – 1 painting; :* Mura, Francesco de – 1 painting; :* Reni, Guido – 1 painting; :* Turchi, Alessandro – 1 painting; :*Francesco Zuccarelli, Zuccarelli, Francesco – 1 painting; :*Giovanni Ansaldo – 1 painting ''Hungarian School'' :*Alexander von Wagner, Wagner, Alexander von – 1 painting

Temporary exhibitions

2013: Raqib Shaw

References

External links

Manchester Art GalleryManchester City Galleries, photographs of the collectionList of paintings on view
{{authority control Art museums and galleries in Manchester Collection of Manchester Art Gallery, Decorative arts museums in England Grade I listed buildings in Manchester Grade I listed museum buildings Art museums established in 1823 1823 establishments in England Charles Barry buildings