This innovative history of British art museums begins in the early 19th century. The National Gallery and the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in London may have been at the center of activity, but museums in cities such as Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and Nottingham were immensely popular and attracted enthusiastic audiences. The People’s Galleries traces the rise of art museums in Britain through World War I, focusing on the phenomenon of municipal galleries. This richly illustrated book argues that these regional museums represented a new type of institution: an art gallery for a working-class audience, appropriate for the rapidly expanding cities and shaped by liberal ideals. As their broad appeal weakened with the new century, they adapted and became more conventional. Using a wide range of sources, the book studies the patrons and the publics, the collecting policies, the temporary exhibitions, and the architecture of these institutions, as well as the complex range of reasons for their foundation.

The People's Galleries: Art Museums and Exhibitions in Britain, 1800–1914

Arts & Photography

Waterfield, Giles

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Paul Mellon Centre

In this brilliantly witty satire -- a bestseller in the UK -- a prestigious British museum launches an ambitious new exhibit...which quickly becomes a seasonal nightmare. Think that a day in the life of a London museum director is cold, quiet, and austere? Think again. Giles Waterfield brings a combination of intellectual comedy and knockabout farce to the subject in this story of one long day in a museum full of scandals, screw-upsŠand more than a few scalawags. At the beginning of The Hound in the Left-hand Corner, Auberon, the brilliant but troubled director of the Museum of British History, is preparing one midsummer's day for the opening of the most spectacular exhibition his museum has ever staged. The centerpiece is a painting of the intriguing Lady St. John strikingly attired as Puck, which hasn't been shown in London in a hundred years. As the day passes, the portrait arouses disquieting questions, jealousies, rivalries -- and more than a few strange affections -- in the minds of the museum staff. As guests and employees pour in, the tension rises -- and Auberon himself has the hilariously ridiculous task of keeping the peace, without losing his own sense of reality as well. For everyone who loves the farce of David Lodge and Michael Frayn, or even the Antiques Roadshow, the fast-paced, hilarious satire of The Hound in the Left-hand Corner is sure to delight and entertain.

The Hound in the Left-hand Corner: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

Atria Books

In the 1930s, Henry and Helen Williamson arrive on the French Riviera looking for a house. Barely thirty, Henry has been forced to retire from the Indian civil service through ill-health. They fall in love with the dreamlike Lou Paradou and set about constructing a life of ease, and a ravishing garden. But as the political conflict gathers, so the atmosphere of their new home becomes increasingly unquiet and a tragic fate befalls them. THE LONG AFTERNOON enchants and involves the reader, just as the Williamsons' garden seduces its visitors.

The Long Afternoon

Review

Markham Thorpe

Genre Fiction

Headline/Review

Published to accompany a major touring exhib ition from January 1999 to September 1999, this book focuses on the collection of Victorian art built up by Merton Russe ll-Cotes and now held in the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and M useum, Bournemouth. '

A Victorian Salon: Paintings from the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum

Bills, Mark

Frick Art & Historical Center

Dahesh Museum

Olding, Simon

Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum

City Art Museum, Helsinki

History & Criticism

Lund Humphries Pub Ltd

The Iron Necklace

Allen& Unwin

Below Stairs: 400 Years of Servants' Portraits

Craske, Matthew

French, Anne

Natl Portrait Gallery Pubns

Founded in 1811, Dulwich Picture Gallery was the first public art gallery in London. This highly illustrated book tells the story of how the gallery was founded and reproduces many of the works of art that it holds'

Rembrant to Gainsborough: Masterpieces from Dulwich Picture Gallery

Shawe-Taylor, Desmond

Dejardin, Iana. C.

Merrell Pub Ltd

Soane and death

John Soane

Architecture

Gallery

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