The New Gallery is a

Crown Estate The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priv ...

-owned

Grade II Listed building 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 Ir ...

IPA: ''New Gallery, Regent Street, London''
Linked 2015-11-21 at 121

Regent Street Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George IV of the United Kingdom, George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash (architect), J ...

, London, which originally was an

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

from 1888 to 1910, The New Gallery Restaurant from 1910 to 1913, The New Gallery Cinema from 1913 to 1953,Cinema Treasure: ''New Gallery Cinema''
Relinked 2015-11-21 and a

Seventh-day Adventist Church The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and i ...

from 1953 to 1992.Cinema Organs Society - New Gallery (Burberry store)
Relinked 2015-11-21 After having been empty for more than ten years, the building was a

Habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

furniture store from 2006 to 2011, and since September 2012 it is a flagship store for

Burberry Burberry is a British luxury fashion house established in 1856 by Thomas Burberry headquartered in London, England. It currently designs and distributes ready to wear, including trench coats (for which it is most famous), leather accessories ...

The gallery period

The New Gallery was founded in 1888 by

J. Comyns Carr Joseph William Comyns Carr (1 March 1849 – 12 December 1916), often referred to as J. Comyns Carr, was an English drama and art critic, gallery director, author, poet, playwright and theatre manager. Beginning his career as an art critic, Car ...

and Charles Edward Hallé. Carr and Hallé had been co-directors of Sir Coutts Lindsay's

Grosvenor Gallery The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provid ...

, but resigned from that troubled gallery in 1887. The building was designed by Edward Robert Robson FSA, and constructed in little more than three months to ensure that it could open in the summer of 1888.Blackburn, Henry: ''New Gallery Notes No. 1'' (May 1888, Chatto and Windus)
Retrieved 2008-12-07Wildman, Stephen: ''Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer'', pages 33, 198, 268 & 319, (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998) The gallery was built on the site of an old fruit market. Existing

cast-iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

columns supporting the roof were encased with

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...

to give the impression of "massive marble shafts" topped with gilded Greek capitals. The

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can als ...

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

, and

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 ...

s above the columns were covered with

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platin ...

leaf. At the opening, the West and North Galleries on the ground floor were devoted to oil paintings, and the first floor balcony around the Central Hall displayed smaller works in oils, watercolours, etchings and drawings. Sculpture was displayed in the Central Hall itself.

Artists and exhibitions

The New Gallery continued the ideals of the Grosvenor, and was an important venue for

Pre-Raphaelite 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, Jam ...

and

Aesthetic movement Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be prod ...

artists.

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hunt ...

, then at the height of his popularity, supported the new venture, serving on its Consulting Committee and lending three large oils for the opening, thus ensuring its financial success.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, (; born Lourens Alma Tadema ; 8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was a Dutch painter who later settled in the United Kingdom becoming the last officially recognised denizen in 1873. Born in Dronryp, the Netherlands, ...

and

William Holman Hunt William Holman Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolism ...

also joined the Consulting Committee, and

George Frederic 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 ...

and

Lord Leighton Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, (3 December 1830 – 25 January 1896), known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was a British painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subjec ...

transferred their loyalty to the New Gallery. The

private view A private view is a special viewing of an exhibition by invitation only, often an art exhibition and normally a preview at the start of a public exhibition.Alice-Azania JarvisHow to behave at a private view... ''The Independent, 10 October 2008. ...

of the first exhibition was held on Tuesday, 8 May 1888, and the exhibition opened to the public on Wednesday, 9 May, for three months. The private view was a great social success, with former Prime Minister

William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...

among the early arrivals. In October and November 1888, the New Gallery hosted the first showcase of industrial and applied arts by the

Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society was formed in London in 1887 to promote the exhibition of decorative arts alongside fine arts. The Society's exhibitions were held annually at the New Gallery (London), New Gallery from 1888 to 1890, and roug ...

under the direction of its founding president, illustrator and designer

Walter Crane Walter Crane (15 August 184514 March 1915) was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Ka ...

. No attempt had been made to show contemporary decorative arts in London since the Grosvenor Gallery's Winter Exhibition of 1881, which included cartoons for mosaic, tapestry, and glass, and the Society's annual (later triennial) exhibitions at the New Gallery were important events in the Arts and Crafts Movement at the end of the 19th century.Crane, Walter: ''Of the Arts and Crafts Movement'' (George Bell & Sons, 1905)
Accessed 2008-12-09Parry, Linda: ''Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement'', pages 71, 76 & 89 (Thames and Hudson, revised edition 2005) In 1890, the New Gallery held an important exhibition of Tudor portraits and relics under the auspices of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

. The New Gallery was the setting for a major Burne-Jones retrospective in 1892–93 and a memorial exhibition of his works in 1898. In 1893 the New Gallery exposed for the first time four panels by

Masaccio Masaccio (, , ; December 21, 1401 – summer 1428), born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was a Florentine artist who is regarded as the first great Italian painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, ...

, later attributed to the Pisa Polyptych (now in

Staatliche Museen The Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters, several research institutes, libraries, and supporting facilities. They are overseen ...

, Berlin).John T. Spike: ''Masaccio'' (Rizzoli libri illustrati, Milano 2002) Carr continued as co-director until 1908. The Arts and Crafts Exhibition of 1910 was the last to be held at the New Gallery.

Later uses for the building

In 1910, the interior was converted into The New Gallery Restaurant, but it was converted again in January 1913, this time to a

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking * ...

. Enlargement and modifications were made to the cinema in 1925, including the installation of a Wurlitzer organ. It was the location of the UK showing of the first full-length animated cartoon, ''

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as Ta ...

'' in 1938. After World War II the cinema struggled, partly because it was slightly off-West End, and the then owners,

Gaumont British The Gaumont-British Picture Corporation produced and distributed films and operated a cinema chain in the United Kingdom. It was established as an offshoot of the Gaumont Film Company of France. Film production Gaumont-British was founded in 18 ...

Theatres. sold the lease to the

and was used as a church from 1953 until the 1990s, although the cinema was occasionally used for religious films. It remained empty until 2006, when it became a

furniture store. The Wurlitzer organ remained in place and was restored to its original condition. Habitat surrendered the lease in March 2011, and in September 2012 the site become a flagship store for

. The New Gallery became a Grade II Listed building in 1992.

The gallery period

Artists and exhibitions

Later uses for the building

References

Further reading