Permanent Picture Gallery for Whitechapel
Building an Art Centre in Poor Quarters under a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners
The work of building the art gallery in Whitechapel is
proceeding apace. It is just a couple of months ago since Viscount Peel laid the
foundation stone, and the walls of what promises to be a unique institution are
beginning to assert themselves as a feature of the Whitechapel road. The picture
gallery in being erected on the west side of the Public Library. Mr. Harrison
Townsend has prepared a design to harmonise with the pretty library building.
The movement is an old one in Whitechapel. Even since Canon
Barnett started the now famous Whitechapel Picture Exhibitions it has been his
dream to see a permanent Art Gallery established. The exhibitions which are now
held annually in the Board Schools adjoining Toynbee Hall can only remain open
for a period of three weeks about East time. The great success of these annual
exhibitions points to the success of the permanent gallery.
The new gallery is to be governed under a scheme of the
Charity Commissioners. This scheme vests the management in seventeen trustees,
comprising thirteen representative trustees and four co-opted members. Three of
the Trustees are to be elected by the London Parochial Charities, three by the
Library Commissioners for Whitechapel, two by the Governing body of Toynbee
Hall, and one each by the Technical Education Board, the Drapers' Company,
Commissioners of Sir John Cass's Foundation, the Department of Science and Art,
and the President of the Royal Academy. Each member will be expected to serve a
term of four years. The first co-opted members are Mrs. H. O. Barnett, Mr.
H.L.W.Lawson, L.C.C., Mr. W.Blyth, and Mr. E. Speyer. Under the scheme it is
provided that the Gallery shall be used for free loan exhibitions of high-class
modern pictures which have been exhibition at one of the chief London or foreign
exhibitions; free exhibitions of objects from museums illustrating periods in
history or forms of industry and art; free exhibitions of work done by school
children of the people resident in the neighbourhood of the gallery; and free
exhibitions of works of art and industry.
The sum of £5000 has been given towards the cost of the
building by Mr. Passmore Edwards, and the City Parochial Charities Trustees
provide an endowment of £500 a year. . . . .
We are enabled to reproduce the accompanying sketch of the
art gallery by the courtesy of the editor of the Toynbee Record and Mr.
Harrison Townsend, the architect. It is the work of Mr. Joseph Pennell.
Municipal Journal and London, February 9, 1899