37086
Bridge Gallery which connects the two main parts of the Grade II* Listed Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, in the city centre of Birmingham, West Midlands.
There are now over 40 galleries to explore that display art, applied art, social history, archaeology and ethnography. The art gallery is famous for its Pre-Raphaelite paintings, which are part of the largest public Pre-Raphaelite collection in the world. It is also home of the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, in its own dedicated gallery.
The Birmingham History collections feature prominently in the 'Birmingham: its people, its history' gallery, which covers the majority of the 3rd floor. There is also art and objects spanning seven centuries of European and World history and culture, this includes Greeks & Romans and Ancient Egypt.
In 1829, the Birmingham Society of Artists created a private exhibition building in New Street, Birmingham while the historical precedent for public education around that time produced the Factory Act 1833, the first instance of Government funding for education.
In 1864, the first public exhibition room was opened when the Society and other donors presented 64 pictures as well as the Sultanganj Buddha to Birmingham Council and these were housed in the Free Library building but, due to lack of space, the pictures had to move to Aston Hall. Joseph Nettlefold bequeathed twenty-five pictures by David Cox to Birmingham Art Gallery on the condition it opened on Sundays.
Jesse Collings, Mayor of Birmingham 1878–79, was responsible for free libraries in Birmingham and was the original proponent of the Birmingham Art Gallery. A £10,000 (£1.2 million in 2019) gift by Sir Richard and George Tangye started a new drive for an art gallery and, in 1885, following other donations and £40,000 (£5 million in 2019) from the council, the Prince of Wales officially opened the new gallery on Saturday 28 November 1885.
The Museum occupied an extended part of the Council House above the new offices of the municipal Gas Department. The building was designed by Yeoville Thomason. The metalwork for the new building (and adjoining Council House) was by the Birmingham firm of Hart, Son, Peard & Co. and extended to both the interior and exterior including the distinctive cast-iron columns in the main gallery space for the display of decorative art.
The lofty portico, surmounted by a pediment by Francis John Williamson, representing an allegory of Birmingham contributing to the fine arts, was together with the clock-tower considered the "most conspicuous features" of the exterior upon its opening. By 1900 the collection, especially its contemporary British holdings, was deemed by the Magazine of Art to be "one of the finest and handsomest" in Britain.
In 1913 suffragettes from the militant suffrage organisation the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) launched a spate of attacks on art galleries and museums in Britain. The attack at Birmingham Art Gallery on 9 June 1914 was carried out by Bertha Ryland, a 28 year old suffragette who had two earlier arrests for militant activities. Ryland used a butcher’s cleaver hidden in her blouse to hack at ‘Master Thornhill’, a painting by George Romney, causing £50 (£5,484 in 2019) worth of damage. She was arrested at the scene and identified from a note she left giving her name and address and protesting against the differential treatment of suffragette prisoners and Irish militants.
Information sources
www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/about
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Museum_and_Art_Gallery
britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101210333-council-house-city...
37086
Bridge Gallery which connects the two main parts of the Grade II* Listed Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, in the city centre of Birmingham, West Midlands.
There are now over 40 galleries to explore that display art, applied art, social history, archaeology and ethnography. The art gallery is famous for its Pre-Raphaelite paintings, which are part of the largest public Pre-Raphaelite collection in the world. It is also home of the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, in its own dedicated gallery.
The Birmingham History collections feature prominently in the 'Birmingham: its people, its history' gallery, which covers the majority of the 3rd floor. There is also art and objects spanning seven centuries of European and World history and culture, this includes Greeks & Romans and Ancient Egypt.
In 1829, the Birmingham Society of Artists created a private exhibition building in New Street, Birmingham while the historical precedent for public education around that time produced the Factory Act 1833, the first instance of Government funding for education.
In 1864, the first public exhibition room was opened when the Society and other donors presented 64 pictures as well as the Sultanganj Buddha to Birmingham Council and these were housed in the Free Library building but, due to lack of space, the pictures had to move to Aston Hall. Joseph Nettlefold bequeathed twenty-five pictures by David Cox to Birmingham Art Gallery on the condition it opened on Sundays.
Jesse Collings, Mayor of Birmingham 1878–79, was responsible for free libraries in Birmingham and was the original proponent of the Birmingham Art Gallery. A £10,000 (£1.2 million in 2019) gift by Sir Richard and George Tangye started a new drive for an art gallery and, in 1885, following other donations and £40,000 (£5 million in 2019) from the council, the Prince of Wales officially opened the new gallery on Saturday 28 November 1885.
The Museum occupied an extended part of the Council House above the new offices of the municipal Gas Department. The building was designed by Yeoville Thomason. The metalwork for the new building (and adjoining Council House) was by the Birmingham firm of Hart, Son, Peard & Co. and extended to both the interior and exterior including the distinctive cast-iron columns in the main gallery space for the display of decorative art.
The lofty portico, surmounted by a pediment by Francis John Williamson, representing an allegory of Birmingham contributing to the fine arts, was together with the clock-tower considered the "most conspicuous features" of the exterior upon its opening. By 1900 the collection, especially its contemporary British holdings, was deemed by the Magazine of Art to be "one of the finest and handsomest" in Britain.
In 1913 suffragettes from the militant suffrage organisation the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) launched a spate of attacks on art galleries and museums in Britain. The attack at Birmingham Art Gallery on 9 June 1914 was carried out by Bertha Ryland, a 28 year old suffragette who had two earlier arrests for militant activities. Ryland used a butcher’s cleaver hidden in her blouse to hack at ‘Master Thornhill’, a painting by George Romney, causing £50 (£5,484 in 2019) worth of damage. She was arrested at the scene and identified from a note she left giving her name and address and protesting against the differential treatment of suffragette prisoners and Irish militants.
Information sources
www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/about
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Museum_and_Art_Gallery
britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101210333-council-house-city...