Leeds City Art Gallery

Foundation date: 3 October 1888

Active: 1888 -

Function: Art gallery and museum

History or description: 'On October 1st, 1888, a new Public Art Gallery was opened [...] It is well adapted for its purpose, the galleries, seven in number, being spacious and well lighted. One of the chief features is a museum court, occupied largely by cases from South Kensington' (Year's Art, 1890, p. 146).

'Erected from designs by W. H. Thorp, of Leeds [...] The cost, exclusive of the site, which was town property, and the facade, consisting of the municipal offices already in existence, was a little over £10,000. On the ground floor is a large central court, round three sides of which are ranged the Museum of Art objects, the Archaeological and Ethnological Museum, and the News Room. To the west are the Vestibule, the Sculpture Room, the Queen's Room, and the Water-colour Room. In these latter are located the permanent and general loan collections' (Year's Art, 1891, p. 165).

Permanent collection contains 'three magnificent Japanese bronzes: a statue of a goddess standing on the back of a dragon, 12th century; and two koros, with figures in the round and in relief, of the 16th century. In pottery, perhaps the leading feature is a series of cases of Old Leeds ware. In the museum will be found an extensive collection of casts from the antique' (Year's Art, 1905, pp. 240-41).

Citing this record

'Leeds City Art Gallery', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/organization.php?id=msib5_1203522606, accessed 10 Jun 2023]