Whitworth Art Gallery
 |
|
| Former name | The Whitworth Institute and Park |
|---|---|
| Established | 1889 |
| Location | Manchester, United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 53°27′37″N 2°13′46″W / 53.460278°N 2.229444°W |
| Founder | Robert Darbishire |
| Director | Maria Balshaw |
| Owner | University of Manchester |
| Website | www |
The Whitworth Art Gallery is an art museum in Manchester, England, containing about 55,000 items in its collection. The museum is located in Whitworth Park south of the Oxford Road campus of the University of Manchester. Since 2006, the director of the gallery is Dr Maria Balshaw.
The gallery was founded in 1889 by Robert Dukinfield Darbishire with a donation from Sir Joseph Whitworth, as The Whitworth Institute and Park. The first building was completed in 1908. In 1958 the gallery became part of the Victoria University of Manchester.
In October 1995 the mezzanine court in the centre of the building was opened. The new gallery, designed chiefly for the display of sculpture, won a RIBA regional award. In 2010 the art gallery received 172,000 visitors, making it one of Greater Manchester's ten most-visited tourist attractions.
The Gallery in 1957
Entrance hall
Gallery interior
Gallery interior
Gallery interior
On Saturday 26 April 2003, three paintings — Van Gogh's The Fortification of Paris with Houses, Picasso's Poverty and Gauguin's Tahitian Landscape – were stolen from the gallery. They were later found rolled up in a nearby public toilet and were subsequently put back on display.
The Grade II listed gallery was built between 1895 and 1900 in a free Jacobean style to the designs of J.W. Beaumont. The gallery consisting two storeys and a basement is constructed of red brick with bands and dressings of matching terracotta and has green slate roofs. Its nine-bay main range has two towers and a large projecting semi-circular porch with a screen of paired stone Ionic columns and a stone frieze below a balustraded parapet.
...
Wikipedia