The National Galleries

According to Wikipedia there are around 60 National Galleries worldwide. They are in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, The United Kingdom, Oceana, etc ...

Why create a national museum of art? It is meant to showcase a country's culture and preserve its historical past. It also is a way to show that the country has a national identity beyond possibly smaller institutions with more limited collections. Smaller countries may establish collections that more highly focus on the works of their own country but after a while realize that they wish to expand to the art of other countries to educate their public. One example is the National Gallery of South Africa.

What started me thinking about this was an email newsletter from the Simon Dickinson Gallery in London. The article focuses on the National Gallery in London which has just begun its third century serving the people of London, the United Kingdom, and the world. Mr. Dickinson points out that London’s National Gallery was not started by a donation from a Princely Collection such as the Uffizi in Florence which was created in order to show the collection of Medici treasures.

In 1777 there was an effort made to create a National Gallery when the Sir Robert Walpole collection was sold by his heirs in 1779. The British government would not acquire it. In the end, it was purchased by Catherine the Great and is now part of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Several more collections slipped through British hands until 1823 when the House of Commons finally agreed to purchase works from the collection of John Julius Angerstein, a friend of Sir Thomas Lawrence. The collection was, however, kept in the owner’s own home until the construction of the present building on Trafalgar Square designed by architect William Wilkins was completed. Its spacious galleries opened to the public in 1838. But that is another saga. The collection continues to grow and here is a painting I love by Henri-Pierre Danloux of the Baron de Besenval in his Salon, 1791, that Mr. Dickinson sold to his National Gallery.

Prime Minister Andrew Fisher accepted the idea of a National Gallery for Australia in 1910. What is the first thing any government does when it wishes to accomplish little? You guessed it, form a committee. This one was known as The Commonwealth Art Advisory Board. One of the original ideas was to have portraits of important Australian personages painted by Australian Artists. By 1912 the Advisory Board decided there should be a building devoted to the collection in Canberra the new city being built as Australia’s capital. However, two world wars, the Great Depression, and building out Canberra’s infrastructure all delayed their efforts for another half-century. Only in 1967 did Prime Minister Harold Holt give the green light to the actual museum building. The collection has world stature today. Here is one work from the Museum in the Indigenous tradition, Charlie Djurritjini, Ganalbingu people, Skull, Bones, Bag, 1987-88.

The National Museum of Sweden was founded as the Royal Museum in 1792 with benefactors Gustav III and Carl Gustaf Tessin. Count Tessin (1695-1770), son of an architect, was a statesman who became an important patron of the arts while serving as ambassador to France from 1739 to 1742. He is credited with bringing the French Rococo style to Sweden. His collection on its own would make it worth visiting the Museum. Renamed the National Museum in 1866, the institution’s current building was designed by the German architect Friedrich August Stüler who also designed the Neues Museum in Berlin. This portrait of Tessin was painted by Jacques-André-Joseph Aved circa 1740.

The inaugural meeting of the South African Fine Arts Association founded by Sir Thomas Butterworth Bayleys and Abraham de Schmidt occurred in 1850. They arranged the first exhibition of fine art in South Africa in a school room with the hope of establishing a National Gallery. The National Collection was founded in Cape Town in 1872 when Bayleys left 45 paintings from his private collection to the nation. With the South African Art Gallery Act of 1895 the South African Government took over the collection in trust and a board of five trustees were elected in 1896 to manage the collection. The National Gallery Act also made provision for the building of new premises, but the foundation was only laid in 1914. Today, aside from works of art from their own and other countries in Africa, the collection consists of Dutch, French, and British works from the 17th to the 19th century.

What have I left out, aside from another 56 National Galleries, is our own. The National Gallery in Washington D.C. was conceived in 1928 by the financier and collector Andrew W. Mellon. He believed the country should have its own Museum like those established in other countries. In 1936 Mellon wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt offering his collection and an endowment to pay for the building of a National Museum. He stipulated that the museum not have his name on it, knowing that many more donors would be needed. In the same year that Mellon died, 1937, Roosevelt and Congress accepted the gift. In fact, the founding benefactors were, Samuel H. Kress, Rush Kress, P. A. B. Widener, Joseph Widener, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Chester Dale, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, and Paul Mellon. Andrew Mellon ask the architect John Russel Pope to design the gallery. Although Pope died within 24 hours of Mellon the gallery was still built to their wishes and Pope’s design. When the Museum opened in 1941 Paul Mellon, Andrew’s son, gave the promised art in his father’s name. Our National Gallery is the only one, that I know of, which was built without government funds. Here is an image of Andrew Mellon with his painting by Meindert Hobbema from 1665 above the mantel.

As I have discussed before politics are part of museum life including and beyond the creation of the National Museums.