Abbot Hall Art Gallery is a museum and gallery in Kendal, England. Abbot Hall was built in 1759 by Colonel George Wilson, the second son of Daniel Wilson of Dallam Tower, a large house and country estate nearby. It was built on the site of the old Abbot’s Hall, roughly where the museum is today. Before the dissolution of the monasteries this was where the Abbot or his representative would stay when visiting from the mother church of St Mary’s, York.[1] The architect is unknown. During the early twentieth century the Grade I listed building was dilapidated and has been restored as an art gallery.
It has one of the finest collections of George Romney’s paintings in Britain and several of his sketchbooks and drawings. Paintings from the eighteenth century include a pair of views of Windermere by Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg. There is also an important group of work by another local artist, Daniel Gardner. It has a significant collection of watercolours, mainly from the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. Many of the greatest watercolourists of the period are represented, including J R Cozens, David Cox, Peter De Wint, John Sell Cotman, John Varley and Edward Lear. The nineteenth century has J M W Turner's watercolour The Passage of Mount St. Gothard and Windermere'(1821).
In 2011 a triptych of Lady Anne Clifford, entitled The Great Picture (currently (2011) in the ownership of the Lakeland Arts Trust[2]) went on display.
The Victorian art critic and social commentator, John Ruskin, lived in the Lake District and the gallery has one of the most comprehensive collections of his drawings and watercolours. The modern collection concentrates more on painting but there is a Barbara Hepworth sculpture. There are three works by Ben Nicholson and many others.
The gallery also has a display about English writer Arthur Ransome. His desk, typewriter and other memorabilia are exhibited. The gallery is also the official address of The Arthur Ransome Society.
Arthur Ransome 2009
Robert Bevan and the Cumberland Market Group
2008
Prunella Clough
Frank Auerbach Etchings and Drypoints 1954 - 2006
Ben Nicholson
Craigie Aitchison Prints
2007
Maggi Hambling, No Straight Lines: Waves and Waterfalls
Collecting the Past, Present & Future
2006
David Bomberg
Morandi's Legacy: Influences on British Art
Drawing Inspiration: Contemporary British Drawing
The Oliver Thompson Collection of British Watercolours
2005
Pictures of Innocence
Nicola Hicks: Sculpture, Drawing and Light
Wyndham Lewis: The Bone Beneath the Pulp
Sean Scully: Paintings and Works on Paper
Freud, Auerbach, Hockney & Rego: Drawing on Copper and Stone
2004
Walter Richard Sickert
Paula Rego & Graham Sutherland: Prints
Celia Paul: Stillness
John Duncan Fergusson: Living Paint
2003
Euan Uglow
Tony Bevan: Works from Deptford
Bruce Bernard: Artists and their Studios
Exhibitions 2002
Stanley Spencer
RB Kitaj
Bridget Riley
Fabric - Reinterpreting the House
2001
Paula Rego
Andy Goldsworthy
Li Yuan-chia
Sculpture from the Tate
Hughie O'Donoghue
2000
Ruskin & the Light of Nature
Paula Rego
Goya - Etchings
Edward Weston - photography
The Art of the Feltmaker
CHORA
Edgar Holloway & Friends
Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers
Matisse: Jazz
Conrad Atkinson
Pottery by William Plumptre
1999
Callum Innes
Queen Victoria's Travels and Family
Henry Moore - 'Sheep'
Ruskin Pottery
The St Ives School
Watercolours from the Permanent Collection 1998
Bridget Riley 1997
Sublime Inspiration 1996
Lucian Freud