Grosvenor Gallery

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Grosvenor Gallery 1877
Entrance to the Grosvenor Gallery
Grosvenor Gallery floor plan

The Grosvenor Gallery was one of the most important British art galleries of the late 19th century and was located on Bond Street in London .

history

The gallery was founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife, Lady Blanche Lindsay, as an alternative to the Royal Academy of Arts . Although it only existed until 1890, the gallery was able to promote the careers of many progressive artists whose work was ignored by the traditional art tastes of the established exhibition venues. The Lindsays developed innovative concepts for art, audience and presentation that not only influenced Victorian art and society , but also had an impact on the development of today's museum practice.

The opening of the gallery in 1877 was such a significant event that Albert Edward , then Prince of Wales , attended it with his wife. At the first summer show in 1877 64 artists were represented, in 1880 more than 200. One of the first exhibitions helped Edward Burne-Jones to late fame. James McNeill Whistler exhibited his painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket here in 1877 , which prompted art critic John Ruskin to make derogatory remarks. Whistler filed a libel suit which was tried in the London High Court in 1878. Whistler won the lawsuit but received little compensation. In 1882 Henry Herbert La Thangue showed one of his works.

The Grosvenor Gallery then showed less provocative works of Symbolism and Pre-Raphaelism , influenced by the aestheticism of the time, depicting allegorical figures in classical robes. The focus was on the contemporary art exhibition that the gallery held every summer when many aristocrats traveled to the city from their country estates. The summer show featured works by established artists as well as new trends. In winter, however, the gallery also showed works by old masters. Later, autumn exhibitions were set up specifically for pastel painting .

It wasn't long before the Grosvenor Gallery became serious competition for the Royal Academy of Arts . Logically, some classical artists also turned to the new gallery, so that numerous works of neoclassicism were soon to be seen. Later works of the second generation of the Pre-Raphaelites were shown. The gallery also regularly paid tribute to traditional artists such as Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Frederic Leighton , who was also President of the Royal Academy of Arts. In the late 1880s, modern painters from the European continent such as Jules Bastien-Lepage could be won over for exhibitions. Finally, the gallery sponsored the art community of the Glasgow Boys , the Newlyn School in Cornwall and the rustic naturalists.

What was innovative about the exhibitions was that the works of the individual artists were hung together, so that mini retrospectives resulted. In contrast to the common practice at the time, the paintings did not hang close to each other or on top of each other up to the ceiling, rather each work was given an appropriate space with at least 30 centimeters from the neighboring picture. After the Lindsays split up in 1882, the gallery soon ran into financial difficulties. Since after Lady Lindsay's departure the sponsorship of her influential friends did not materialize either, the gallery had to be closed in 1890.

Well-known exhibitors

literature

  • Susan P. Casteras, Colleen Denney: The Grosvenor Gallery . Yale University Press, New Haven 1996, ISBN 0-300-06752-6 .
  • Christopher Newall: The Grosvenor Gallery Exhibitions . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995, ISBN 0-521-61212-8 .
  • Henry Blackburn: English Art in 1884: The Grosvenor Gallery . D. Appleton & Co., New York 1895. ( online )

Web links

Commons : Grosvenor Gallery  - collection of images, videos and audio files