Manchester Art Gallery

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Manchester Art Gallery

Manchester City Art Gallery, Mosley Street
General information
Location Mosley Street, City Centre, Manchester, England
Completed 1824
Design and construction
Architect Sir Charles Barry

Manchester Art Gallery is a publicly owned art gallery in Mosley Street, Manchester, England. It was formerly known as Manchester City Art Gallery. The gallery opened in 1824 and today occupies three buildings, the oldest of which, designed by Sir Charles Barry, is Grade I listed[1] and was originally home to the Royal Manchester Institution. The gallery is free to enter and houses the civic art collection, which includes works of local and international significance.

Architecture

The two-storey gallery, designed by Barry, is built in rusticated ashlar to a rectangular in plan on a raised plinth. The roof is hidden by a continuous dentilled cornice and plain parapet. Its eleven-bay facade has two three-bay side ranges and a central five-bay pedimented projecting portico with six Ionic columns. Set back behind the parapet is an attic with small windows that forms a lantern above the entrance hall.[1]

The gallery was extended to the rear by Hopkins Architects in 2002 following an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions to take in the Manchester Athenaeum, designed in the palazzo style by Barry in 1826.[2][3]

Collections

The Italianate Athenaeum building (Sir Charles Barry, architect, 1826) part of the Manchester Art Gallery facing Princess Street

The Manchester Art Gallery is strong in its representation of the English school, with works by Thomas Gainsborough and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

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 and 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.

As well as paintings, the museum holds collections of glass, silverware and furniture – including two pieces by the Victorian reformist architect and designer William Burges.

Paintings

The Good Samaritan by G F Watts framed by doorways

Dutch School

Wynford Dewhurst - The Picnic (1908)

English School

Flemish School

French School

German School

Italian School

Hungarian School

Temporary exhibitions

2013: Raqib Shaw

See also

References

External links

Coordinates: 53°28′43″N 2°14′29″W / 53.47861°N 2.24139°W / 53.47861; -2.24139

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