Established | 1901 |
---|---|
Location | 77–82 Whitechapel High Street, London, England, United Kingdom [1] |
Coordinates | 51°30′58″N0°04′14″W / 51.515984°N 0.070485°W |
Visitors | 490,000 (April 2009 – April 2010) |
Director | Gilane Tawadros |
Public transit access | Aldgate East |
Website | www |
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the first publicly funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London. The building is a notable example of the British Modern Style. [2] In 2009 the gallery approximately doubled in size by incorporating the adjacent former Passmore Edwards library building. It exhibits the work of contemporary artists and organizes retrospective exhibitions and other art shows. [3]
The gallery exhibited Pablo Picasso's Guernica in 1938 as part of a touring exhibition organised by Roland Penrose to protest against the Spanish Civil War. [4]
The gallery played a major role in the history of post-war British art by promoting the work of emerging artists. Several significant exhibitions were held at the Whitechapel Gallery including This is Tomorrow in 1956, the first UK exhibition by Mark Rothko in 1961, and in 1964, The New Generation show which featured John Hoyland, Bridget Riley, David Hockney and Patrick Caulfield among others. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Initiated by members of the Independent Group, the exhibition brought Pop Art to the general public as well as introducing some of the artists, concepts, designers and photographers that would define the Swinging Sixties.
Throughout its history, the gallery had a series of open exhibitions that provided a platform for the area's artist community, but by the early 1990s these open shows became less relevant as emerging artists moved to other areas.
In the late 1970s, the critical importance of the Whitechapel Gallery was displaced by newer venues such as the Hayward Gallery, then in the 1980s it enjoyed a resurgence under the Directorship of Nicholas Serota. The gallery had a major refurbishment in 1986; and in 2009 expanded into the former Passmore Edwards Library building next door. The expansion, which doubled the gallery's physical size and nearly tripled its available exhibition space, now allows the Whitechapel Gallery to remain open to the public all year round. [5]
In 2006, Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press formed an editorial alliance to produce a new series of books entitled Documents of Contemporary Art. [16]
The Whitechapel reopened in April 2009 after a two-year project, which approximately doubled the size of the Gallery by incorporating the adjacent former Passmore Edwards library building (vacated when Whitechapel Idea Store opened). The work cost approximately £13.5 million and was partly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. A full-size tapestry based on Pablo Picasso's Guernica , by Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach and loaned from the United Nations Art Collection, was included in the inaugural exhibition by Goshka Macuga. [17] [18] and Isa Genzken. [19]
As part of the expansion, a new Archive Gallery, a reading room and an archive repository (where the Whitechapel's historic records are held) have been created to support the Whitechapel's standing as an educational charity. The archives catalogue the very conception of the gallery, as well as the complete directors' files of correspondence which reveal the reasons behind key decisions in the Gallery's history. [20]
The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, in the late 1980s, whereas some from the group had trained at Royal College of Art.
Patrick Joseph Caulfield,, was an English painter and printmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements of photorealism within a pared-down scene. Examples of his work are Pottery and Still Life Ingredients.
David Hockney is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.
Stephen Snoddy is a British artist and gallery director.
Sir Norman Rosenthal is a British independent curator and art historian. From 1970 to 1974 he was Exhibitions Officer at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. In 1974 he became a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, leaving in 1976. The following year, in 1977, he joined the Royal Academy in London as Exhibitions Secretary where he remained until his resignation in 2008. Rosenthal has been a trustee of numerous different national and international cultural organisations since the 1980s; he is currently on the board of English National Ballet. In 2007, he was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. Rosenthal is well known for his support of contemporary art, and is particularly associated with the German artists Joseph Beuys, Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer and Julian Schnabel, the Italian painter Francesco Clemente, and the generation of British artists that came to prominence in the early 1990s known as the YBAs.
Isa Genzken is a German artist who lives and works in Berlin. Her primary media are sculpture and installation, using a wide variety of materials, including concrete, plaster, wood and textile. She also works with photography, video, film and collage.
Elizabeth Joy Peyton is an American contemporary artist working primarily in painting, drawing, and printmaking. Best known for figures from her own life and those beyond it, including close friends, historical personae, and icons of contemporary culture, Peyton's portraits have regularly featured artists, writers, musicians, and actors.
Bryan Robertson OBE was an English curator and arts manager described by Studio International as "the greatest Director the Tate Gallery never had".
Liam Gillick is a British artist who lives and works in New York City. Gillick deploys multiple forms to make visible the aesthetics of the constructed world and examine the ideological control systems that have emerged along with globalization and neoliberalism. He utilizes materials that resemble everyday built environments, transforming them into minimalist abstractions that deliver commentaries on social constructs, while also exploring notions of modernism.
Lynne Cooke is an Australian-born art scholar. Since August 2014 she has been the Senior Curator, Special Projects in Modern Art, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Patrick Procktor was a British painter and printmaker.
Paul Huxley RA is a British painter.
Robert Prime was a gallery in London in the late 1990s. Founded by Tommaso Corvi-Mora and Gregorio Magnani, it held the first exhibitions in London of artists including Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Isa Genzken, Philippe Parreno and General Idea. It also hosted the first exhibitions of artists including Rachel Feinstein, Martin Maloney, Vydia Galstaldon and Jean-Michel Wicker. The gallery closed in December 1999.
Iwona Maria Blazwick OBE is a British art critic and lecturer. She is currently the Chair of the Royal Commission for Al-'Ula’s Public Art Expert Panel. She was the Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London from 2001 to 2022. She discovered Damien Hirst and staged his first solo show at a public London art gallery, Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1992. She supports the careers of young artists.
John Hoyland RA was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters.
Victor Arthur James Willing was a British painter, noted for his original nude studies. He was a friend and colleague of many notable artists, including Elisabeth Frink, Michael Andrews and Francis Bacon. He was married to Portuguese feminist artist Paula Rego.
Briony Fer, FBA is a British art historian, critic, and curator; professor of history of art at University College London. She has written extensively on diverse topics of 20th century and contemporary art. She has written essays on numerous contemporary artists, such as Gabriel Orozco, Vija Celmins, Jean-Luc Moulène, Roni Horn, Ed Ruscha, and Rachel Whiteread. A focus of her research is on the art of American sculptor Eva Hesse, as when she wrote for the catalogue for the artist's 2002 retrospective curated by Elisabeth Sussman at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art in 2002.
Derek Balmer is a British artist and photographer, Past President of the Royal West of England Academy (2001–10) and Pro-Chancellor of the University of the West of England (2001–10) to Chancellor Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the West of England in 2001.
Sabine Breitwieser is an Austrian curator, art manager and publicist.
Michael Jackson: On the Wall, was an exhibition that explored the influence of Michael Jackson on some of contemporary art's leading names. The exhibition included contemporary artists’ interpretations of Michael Jackson in over 100 works of art. The featured 48 artists spanned several generations across all media. The list includes established international artists like Andy Warhol and Isa Genzken, to Kehinde Wiley, and Jordan Wolfson. The National Portrait Gallery partnered with the Michael Jackson Estate to produce the exhibition. Dr. Nicholas Cullinan is the show's director. Private collectors from around the world loaned the art pieces for the show, which also included new works made especially for Michael Jackson: On the Wall.