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. ...
on
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 ...
in
Manchester city centre. 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
Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsi ...
. Both Barry's buildings are
listed. The building that links them was designed by
Hopkins Architects 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. 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 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'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, 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,
Evelyn Manesta, 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 Brita ...
. They broke the glass of thirteen paintings including two by
John Everett Millais 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 Symbolism (arts), Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for hi ...
. 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 which is also responsible for Platt Hall
Platt Hall,
Fallowfield. Alistair Hudson is the director of the galleries and also director of the
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...
's
Whitworth Art Gallery. 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
Manchester Art Gallery is housed in three connected buildings. The City Art Gallery building, which faces onto
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 ...
, 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. 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 Vitr ...
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 ...
. 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 ...
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'). ...
. 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 pedim ...
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 c ...
with six
Ionic columns. Set back behind the parapet is an
attic
An attic (sometimes referred to as a ''loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...
with small windows that forms a
lantern above the entrance hall.
Manchester Athenaeum, also designed by Barry, was built in 1837 and was bought by the
Manchester Corporation in 1938 to provide additional space. It is Grade II* listed and designed in the Italian
Palazzo style.
The Athenaeum fronts onto
Princess Street.
In November 1994 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 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
Sir Michael John Hopkins (born 7 May 1935) is an English architect.
Career
Michael Hopkins was born in Poole, Dorset, and educated at Sherborne School 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 ...
s, 3,000
watercolours 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 houses and related items.
The oldest object is an Egyptian
canopic jar from circa 1100
BC.
Thomas Coglan Horsfall's eclectic collection from the
Manchester Art Museum in
Ancoats Hall
Ancoats Hall in Ancoats, Manchester, England, was a post-medieval country house built in 1609 by Oswald Mosley, a member of the family who were Lords of the Manor of Manchester. The old timber-framed hall, built in the early 17th century, was d ...
was absorbed into the gallery when the museum closed in 1953.
Manchester Art Gallery is strongest in its collection of
Victorian art, especially that of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and
Victorian decorative arts.
The gallery houses several works by the French impressionist,
Pierre Adolphe Valette, 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 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 electoral ward of Manchester, England, immediately south of Manchester city centre. It has a significant industrial heritage.
Historically in Lancashire, the name Hulme is derived from the Old Norse word for ...
is represented in the collection by 16 paintings and her contemporary at the
Manchester School of Art,
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.
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 100 ...
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 – 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;
''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;
:*
Zuccarelli, Francesco – 1 painting;
:*Giovanni Ansaldo – 1 painting
''Hungarian School''
:*
Wagner, Alexander von – 1 painting
Temporary exhibitions
2013:
Raqib Shaw
See also
*
Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester
*
Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester
*
Listed buildings in Manchester-M2
References
External links
Manchester Art GalleryManchester City Galleries, photographs of the collectionList of paintings on view
{{authority control
Art museums and galleries in Manchester
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