Grosvenor Gallery facts for kids
The Grosvenor Gallery was a famous art gallery in London, England. It opened in 1877, started by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife, Blanche. This gallery was very important for a group of artists called the Aesthetic Movement. It gave a place for artists like Edward Burne-Jones and Walter Crane to show their work. These artists often had different styles that the older, more traditional Royal Academy didn't always like.
History of the Gallery
The Grosvenor Gallery first opened its doors in Bond Street, London, in 1877. Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife, Blanche, were the founders. They hired J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé to help run it. Both Sir Coutts and Blanche came from important families and were amateur artists themselves. Blanche was born into the wealthy Rothschild family, and her money made the gallery possible.
The Grosvenor Gallery showed art from many different artists, including some who weren't part of the main British art scene. This included artists like Edward Burne-Jones and Walter Crane, who were part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. But it also displayed works by well-known artists like Lawrence Alma-Tadema and James Tissot, whose art was also shown at the Royal Academy.
In 1877, a famous art critic named John Ruskin visited the gallery. He saw paintings by Burne-Jones and also by James McNeill Whistler. Ruskin wrote a very harsh review of Whistler's work. This led to a famous court case where Whistler sued Ruskin for libel (saying something untrue that harms someone's reputation). Whistler won the case, but only received a very small amount of money as damages.
This court case made the Grosvenor Gallery even more famous. It became known as the home of the Aesthetic Movement. This movement was even made fun of in a popular operetta called Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan. One line in the show joked about the gallery with "greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery." An art critic named Henry Blackburn even created special illustrated guides for the gallery's yearly shows, called Grosvenor Notes.
In 1888, Comyns Carr and Hallé left the gallery after a disagreement with Sir Coutts Lindsay. They started a new gallery called the New Gallery. Many of the Grosvenor Gallery's artists, like Burne-Jones, went with them. Sir Coutts Lindsay faced problems in his marriage and with money, which forced him to leave the gallery. His wife, Blanche, took over running it. The original Grosvenor Gallery closed in 1890.
Later Revivals
After the original gallery closed, the name "Grosvenor Gallery" was used again twice by different groups:
- In October 1912, two art dealers, P. & D. Colnaghi & Co. and Knoedler, opened a new Grosvenor Gallery. It was planned to be one of London's largest and best galleries. However, it closed in 1924 because it was hard to find 1,000 new, high-quality artworks every year.
- In October 1960, an American art collector and dealer named Eric Estorick opened another new Grosvenor Gallery. This gallery focused on modern sculpture and was still open in 2020.
Generating Electricity
When the Earl of Crawford returned from an exhibition in Paris in 1882, he suggested that Sir Coutts Lindsay install electric lights in the gallery. In 1883, two large engines were put in a yard behind the gallery. These engines powered machines that made electricity.
The electric lighting worked very well, and soon, neighbours started asking for electricity for their own homes. Because of this, Lindsay, Crawford, and Lord Wantage started a company. In 1885, they built the Grosvenor Power Station right under the gallery! This power station could produce a lot of electricity. It supplied power to a large area of London, reaching places like Regent's Park and the River Thames.
However, the system had many problems. A smart engineer named Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti was hired in 1885 to help fix it. By 1886, Ferranti became the Chief Engineer and redesigned the system. The Grosvenor Power Station later became a smaller power station when a much larger one, the Deptford Power Station, opened.
See also
- Grosvenor Gallery Library
