Glasgow Art Club
| Formation | 1867 |
|---|---|
| Type | The Arts |
| Headquarters | Glasgow, Scotland |
| Location |
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| Coordinates | 55°51′52″N 4°15′45″W / 55.8645°N 4.2626°WCoordinates: 55°51′52″N 4°15′45″W / 55.8645°N 4.2626°W |
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President
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Efric McNeil |
| Website | www |
Glasgow Art Club is a club for practising and retired artists and lay members with an interest in the arts, that has become over the generations “a meeting place for artists, business leaders and academics.”
One of Glasgow's, and Scotland’s, most respected institutions Glasgow Art Club was founded in 1867 by amateur artist William Dennistoun and friends. Following initial discussions at a tea room above a baker’s shop in Candleriggs, Glasgow, on the proposal to form a club, the first formal meetings of the club were held at the Waverley Temperance Hotel, on Buchanan Street, Glasgow, with Dennistoun elected the club’s first president. Membership was to grow during the 1870s, with professional artists joining and exhibitions being held and in 1875 the club moved to another hotel called the Waverley, this time one on the city’s Sauchiehall Street. From there the club was to relocate to the Royal Hotel on the city’s George Square, renting rooms for six months at a time, where life and sketching classes were held.
Membership of the club began to be extended beyond painters (in 1881 the pioneering photographer James Craig Annan was admitted as a ‘’photographic artist’’ and in 1903 John M. Crawford (another former pupil of Hamilton Academy), Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, became the first architect to be elected President of Glasgow Art Club.)
In 1878 the club moved to rented premises at 62 Bothwell Street and the need to raise funds led to a change in the club’s constitution and the admission in 1886 of male lay members with an interest in the arts (admission of women not extended until 1982. ) With membership burgeoning new premises were rented at 151 Bath Street, these formally opened on 12 November 1886 but soon afterwards two adjacent town houses on Bath Street were purchased, these converted by the architect John Keppie, a member of the club, creating also an exhibition gallery in what were the back gardens of the adjacent houses. It has recently been discovered that the young Charles Rennie Mackintosh was involved in the decorative details of the renovations and created a mural. The club’s new premises were formally opened on 14 June 1893. The club has recently embarked on a major programme of renovation of its historic category A Listed building on Bath Street, Glasgow.
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