Places to Visit to see Victorian Art
See the foot of this page for 2009 Exhibitions in the UK, and other places to visit. Victorian churches and other buildings can be found all over Britain and also in the USA and what was the British Empire. Most are in the Gothic Revival style. Many have interesting patterned floor tiles and stone or wood carvings, while the stained glass often shows a very high standard of craftsmanship.
The Victoria and Albert Museum, or V&A, is a fine Victorian building next to the Victorian Natural History Museum in South Kensington. The V&A has William Morris’s Green Dining Room and a fine collection of Victorian furnishings, including works by Pugin and Morris, on the top floor of its British Galleries. www.vam.ac.uk For Art Galleries with Victorian paintings click on Places to see Pre-Raphaelite Art at the end of this entry.
London has public buildings as well as churches by most of the major Victorian architects. The most famous is probably The Palace of Westminster or Houses of Parliament, where the elaborate decorations by A. W. N. Pugin include richly tiled floors and brightly coloured hand printed wallpapers, some of these items and designs by Pugin can be seen at the V&A.
George Gilbert Scott was a leader of the Gothic Revival, though Lord Palmerston forced him to build the Foreign Office in Whitehall in the classical style. The writings of Pugin influenced Scott's St. Giles, Camberwell, 1844, and John Ruskin designed the windows at St Giles. Scott also won the competition to design the Albert Memorial,1862-1872. It has a gilded statue of Prince Albert below a Gothic canopy. It is near the V&A. In 1866-77 Scott designed the red brick Gothic facade of the Midland Grand Hotel at London's St. Pancras Station, Tel 020 7304 3900 for tours of the Hotel restoration.
In Oxford Scott designed a new Gothic chapel for Exeter College, 1856-59. He modelled the tall windows on St. Louis' Sainte Chapelle in Paris. He filled them with stained glass by Clayton and Bell.
William Butterfield changed his plans for All Saints Margaret Street,
tel. 020 7636 1788, www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk
after the May 1849 publication of John Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of
Architecture. The High Church journal, The Ecclesiologist approved
of Butterfield's use of 'constructional polychrome' of 'red and black
brick arranged in patterns'. The interior is richly decorated with
coloured marbles, gilding etc. The painted tile pictures date from 1873
and 1889, the Chancel was redecorated by Comper in 1909.and 1919. The church is
in London, near Oxford Circus. It is open daily from 7am-7pm.
Saint Augustine, Rudolf Road, Kilburn, was completed by Pearson in 1878
in the Early English Style.
Keble College, Oxford has a Chapel by William Butterfield, built in 1873-6 with polychrome brickwork and Holman Hunt's painting I Stand at the Door and Knock.
The Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand are of course open to the
public as 'Justice has to be seen to be done.' They are a fine Gothic Revival
building by G. E. Street completed in 1882, with a huge vaulted entrance hall
like a cathedral. The monument to GE Street is just inside the main entrance on
the right of the hall. Below his figure are carvings showing craftsmen for all
the crafts for which Street made designs, including church embroidery.
The Guildhall Art Gallery off Gresham Street, City of London tel 020 7332 3700, has a fine collection of Victorian paintings
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, 01603 493625, www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk. A version of Burne-Jones's tapestry The Star of Bethlehem is shown in the Norman Keep and the Art Gallery also has a version of his Annunciation.
The Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow is open free and closed Sundays. It has many drawings and etchings by Whistler, his Butterfly Cabinet and furnished replicas of his own house, 1906-14, and of his 1916 guest bedroom for 78 Derngate, Northampton. The Hunterian website has a new catalogue with around 1500 images of the Hunterian's collection of Whistler's works www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk More works by Whistler can be seen at the Freer Gallery in Washington DC, including his famous Peacock Room. Several works of Charles Rennie Mackintosh can be seen in Glasgow, like the School of Art and the Willow Tea Rooms, and his Hill House NT is nearby.
78 Derngate, Northampton, phone 01604 603407 to book a guided tour. Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed the furnishings for this terraced house in 1916-17. There is an exhibition in the house next door.
Leighton House Museum, tel 0207 6023316 ext. 300, 12 Holland Park Road, take
Melbury Road, near the Odeon Cinema, from Kensington High Street. (Melbury Road
contains Burges’s Tower House, 1878-81, which is not open to the public.)
Leighton House was the home of Frederic Leighton, the President of the Royal
Academy from 1878 to 1896. It contains his studio, a fine Arab Hall with
Arab tiles and mosaics by Walter Crane and many drawings by him and by
Burne-Jones. It is open daily, except on Tuesday, from
11am-5.30pm.
A Teacher's pack with A4 colour illustrations of works by Millais including his little known landscapes was published by Tate Britain on its website for its Millais exhibition in 2007. www.tate.org.uk The website also had extracts from Millais' Diary describing how he and Hunt had to make straw huts to paint in as it was so cold.
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham, phone 01833 690606www.bowesmuseum.org.uk. The exhibits include a brightly coloured Gothic Revival wash basin by Burges worthy of comparison with his washbasin in the V&A.
The Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock, had an Exhibition Idylls of the King, in 2007 - 2008, Tel 01249 730459. Fox Talbot took some of the first photos at Lacock Abbey and the National Trust now owns whole village The Exhibition contained the 24 photographs of models in medieval costume which Tennyson asked the famous photographer, Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) to take as illustrations for an illustrated edition of his popular poems about King Arthur, The Idylls of the King..Dissatisfied with the wood engravings made from the photos, Tennyson encouraged Margaret Cameron to publish a book with the photos tipped in. Only four copies still exist.
The Watts Gallery, Compton, near Guildford, phone 01483 810 235, is closed Thursdays. The Gallery also has a number of paintings and sculptures by Watts. Nearby is the Mausoleum erected by his widow covered with sculpture in terracotta.
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has a fine collection of paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites, including important early works by Burne-Jones.
EXHIBITIONS OF VICTORIAN ART IN 2009
The Royal Academy in Piccadilly, London has an Exhibition of paintings and drawings by John William Waterhouse from June 13 - Sept 13 2009. Then it moves to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Quebec Canada from October 3 - Feb 7 2010. J. W. Waterhouse is often called a "late Pre-Raphaelite"., partly because he shared their love of scenes from the legends of King Arthur, but he also painted scenes from Greek myths and he admired the paintings of the Impressionists.
The Royal Academy also has on loan, until Nov 29 2009, open 1-4.30pm Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 6pm Sat to Sunday, the last of Frith's huge panoramic paintings which shows visitors to The Private View at the Royal Academy in 1881.This includes mocking portraits of the Aesthetes, represented by a woman with a sunflower and Oscar Wilde with a lily. Other figures portray Prime Minister Gladstone, Lily Langtry and Lord Leighton who ended his life as a President of the Royal Academy. Paintings by other artists include a portrait of Leighton by G F Watts.
Saint Paul's Cathedral, London G F Watts : Parables in Print until July 30 2009, Monday to Saturday, 8.30am - 4.30pm, thirty oil paintings and drawings from the Watts Gallery.
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk phone 0161 275 7450 Walter Crane exhibition, Walter Crane and Manchester, 1880-1915 until September 2009. The Walter Crane Family Archive is now stored at the Whitworth Gallery and it provides many of the items on display, including some of Crane's illustrations for Left Wing publications, such as the striking England to her own Rescue with a ragged woman and baby being rescued from the snake like coils of capitalistic greed. A major exhibition but it pays little attention to Crane's close connections with William Morris and the Socialist League and his illustrations for its magazine The Commonweal, which was edited by Morris, who also asked Crane to illustrate one of his own works for his Kelmscott Press. Crane is mainly known today for his achievements in coloured wood block illustrations for children's Toy Books, like The Baby's Bouquet.
Minneaopolis Institute of Art USA Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision, from June 13 to September 6 2009. .Holman Hunt can be considered as the most important of the founders of Pre-Raphaelitism and as the only one of the original founders not to abandon their laborious methods. His painting The Light of the World was largely painted out of doors in very cold weather and a world tour and many black and white prints made it one of the most popular Victorian works of art. The exhibition has over thirty of his most important works as well as many other items, some collected on his visits to the Holy Land.
Click here for details of books on Victorian Paintings and on Waterhouse and Holman Hunt, linked to Amazon.
Click on the links below for other places to visit
Morris Places to Visit Burne-Jones Places to Visit
William Morris in the Cotswolds Morris windows in Brighton
Places to see Pre-Raphaelite art Kempe windows in Brighton
Pugin and the Gothic Revival Places to Visit Burges Places to Visit