Grosvenor Gallery#Generating station
{{Short description|Art gallery in London, England (1877–1890)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2015}}
{{Distinguish|text = the revivals which used the same name, first by P. & D. Colnaghi & Co. and Knoedler in 1912 and then by Eric Estorick in 1960}}
File:The Grosvenor Gallery - New Bond Street - The Entrance.jpg, 19 May 1877.]]
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 provided a home for those artists whose approaches the more classical and conservative Royal Academy did not welcome, such as Edward Burne-Jones and Walter Crane.
History
File:Grosvenor Gallery plan 1899 rotated.jpg
The gallery was founded in Bond Street, London, in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. They engaged J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé as co-directors. Lindsay and his wife were well-born and well-connected, and both were amateur artists. Blanche was born a Rothschild, and it was her money which made the whole enterprise possible.
File:Grosvenor Gallery.jpg, 5 May 1877.{{cite book|last1=Teukolsky|first1=Rachel|title=The Literate Eye: Victorian Art Writing and Modernist Aesthetics|date=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=113|isbn=9780195381375|edition=illustrated|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S-ocBOwYCN4C&q=illustrated+london+news+grosvenor+gallery+%22May+5+1877%22&pg=PA113|access-date=29 July 2014}}]]
The Grosvenor displayed work by artists from outside the British mainstream, including Edward Burne-Jones, Walter Crane and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. But it also featured work by others that were widely shown elsewhere, including the Royal Academy, such as Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Edward John Poynter and James Tissot. In 1877 John Ruskin visited the gallery to see work by Burne-Jones. An exhibition of paintings by James McNeill Whistler was also on display. Ruskin's savage review of Whistler's work led to a famous libel case, brought by the artist against the critic. Whistler won a farthing in damages. The case made the gallery famous as the home of the Aesthetic movement, which was satirised in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, which includes the line, "greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery". The enterprising art critic Henry Blackburn issued illustrated guides to the annual exhibitions under the title Grosvenor Notes (1877–82).
In 1888, after a disagreement with Lindsay, Comyns Carr and Hallé resigned from the gallery to found the rival New Gallery, capturing Burne-Jones and many of the Grosvenor Gallery's other artists. The break-up of his marriage, financial constraints and personal conflicts forced Lindsay out of the gallery, which was taken over by his estranged wife.
Revivals
After its closure in 1890 the Grosvenor Gallery name was revived twice by unrelated ventures:
- in October 1912, P. & D. Colnaghi & Co. and Knoedler opened a new Grosvenor Gallery at 51a New Bond Street, appointing the American-born artist and critic Francis Howard, who worked for Knoedler, as the managing director.{{r|Grosvenor-Background}}{{r|Grosvenor-Gallery}}{{r|New-Grosvenor-1912}} The Gallery was planned to be one of the largest and finest in London and had six rooms.{{r|Grosvenor-Six-Rooms}} There was an appeal to raise funds to purchase the lease from the Colnaghis,{{r|Grosvenor-Appeal}} but in January 1920 the Daily Mirror announced that the gallery was due to be shut due to problems with funding.{{r|Grosvenor-Closure}} The gallery was reopened in February 1921, under the sole proprietorship of the Colnaghis, with an exhibition of living artists.{{r|Grosvenor-Reopen}} However, it finally closed in 1924, with the Colnaghis stating that the problem was not so much finance, even though the gallery did not pay its way, but the difficulty of finding 1,000 new works of an adequate quality every year.{{r|Grosvenor-Close-1924}}
- in October 1960, the American art collector, dealer, and author Eric Estorick opened a new Grosvenor Gallery at 15 Davies Street with a display of modern sculpture.{{r|New-Grosvenor-1960}} The gallery was still operating in 2025.{{cite web |url=https://www.grosvenorgallery.com/ |title=Grosvenor Gallery |access-date=2025-04-10}}
Generating station
Upon returning from the Paris Exhibition of 1882, the Earl of Crawford recommended that Lindsay install electric lighting in the gallery. In 1883, two Marshall engines, each belted to a Siemens alternator, were installed in a yard behind the gallery. The installation was a success, and neighbours began requesting a supply. Lindsay, Crawford and Lord Wantage then set up the Sir Coutts Lindsay Co. Ltd., and in 1885 constructed the Grosvenor Power Station. This was constructed under the gallery and had a capacity of 1,000 kilowatts. The station supplied an area reaching as far north as Regent's Park, the River Thames to the south, Knightsbridge to the west and the High Court of Justice to the east. However the system caused a lot of trouble, so much so that Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti gave advice as to how to resolve it in 1885; by January 1886 Ferranti was Chief Engineer and within a few months reworked the system to include a Hick, Hargreaves Corliss engine and two alternators to his own design as replacements for the Siemens equipment. A fire which took place on November 15th, 1890, which caused an entire cessation of the lighting for a space of three months. The plant was subsequently removed to Deptford and the station was made a substation supplied from Deptford Power Station.
See also
References
{{Reflist|refs=
|title=Grosvenor Gallery
|website=Artist Biographies
|url=https://www.artbiogs.co.uk/2/galleries/grosvenor-gallery
|access-date=2020-08-28 }}
|title=A New Grosvenor Gallery
|journal=The Times
|issue=Monday 17 October 1960
|pages=8
|date=1960-10-17
|url=https://www.thetimes.com/archive/article/1960-10-17/8/12.html
|access-date=2020-09-13 }}
|title=The New Grosvenor Gallery
|journal=Westminster Gazette
|issue=Tuesday 08 October 1912
|pages=3
|date=1912-10-08
|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002947/19121008/025/0003
|access-date=2020-09-13
|via=The British Newspaper Archive }}
|title=Grosvenor Galleries
|journal=Daily Mirror
|issue=Monday 19 January 1920
|pages=11
|date=1920-01-19
|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000560/19200119/089/0011
|access-date=2020-09-13
|via=The British Newspaper Archive }}
|title=London Letter: Mr James M'Bey's Portraits
|journal=Aberdeen Press and Journal
|issue=Friday 11 February 1921
|pages=4
|date=1921-02-11
|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000576/19210211/024/0004
|access-date=2020-09-13
|via=The British Newspaper Archive }}
|title=The Grosvenor Galleries
|journal=The Times
|issue=Thursday 13 March 1924
|pages=11
|date=1924-03-13
|url=https://www.thetimes.com/archive/article/1924-03-13/11/17.html
|access-date=2020-09-13 }}
|title=Portraits of Fair Children
|journal=The Times
|issue=Tuesday 12 March 1912
|pages=4
|date=1912-03-12
|url=https://www.thetimes.com/archive/article/1912-03-02/4/10.html
|access-date=2020-09-13 }}
|title=The Grosvenor Galleries
|journal=The Times
|issue=Tuesday 25 January 1921
|pages=6
|date=1921-01-25
|url=https://login.thetimes.com/?gotoUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetimes.com%2Farchive%2Farticle%2F1921-01-25%2F6%2F5.html
|access-date=2020-09-13 }}
|title=The Grosvenor Gallery
|journal=The Times
|issue=Thursday 06 November 1919
|pages=8
|date=1919-11-06
|url=https://www.thetimes.com/archive/article/1919-11-06/8/12.html
|access-date=2020-09-13 }}
}}
Sources and further reading
- {{Cite book |last=Denney |first=Colleen |url=https://archive.org/details/attempleofartgro0000denn |title=At the Temple of Art: the Grosvenor Gallery, 1877–1890 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-8386-3850-3 |location=Madison, NJ |url-access=registration}}
- {{cite book |last=Hannah |first=Leslie |title=Electricity Before Nationalisation, A Study in the Development of the Electricity Supply Industry in Britain to 1948 |year=1979 |location=London & Basingstoke |publisher=Macmillan Publishers for the Electricity Council |isbn=0-8018-2145-2 }}
- {{cite book |last=Lambourne |first=Lionel |year=1996 |title=The Aesthetic Movement |location=London |publisher=Phaidon Press |isbn= 0-7148-3000-3 }}
- {{cite book |last1=Snodin |first1=Michael |last2=Styles |first2=John |year=2001 |title=Design & The Decorative Arts, Britain 1500–1900 |location= London |publisher=V&A Publications |isbn=1-85177-338-X }}
{{Electricity generation in Greater London}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grosvenor Gallery}}
Category:Arts and Crafts movement
Category:Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Category:1877 establishments in England