Whitechapel Art Gallery

The Whitechapel Art Gallery was built next to the Whitechapel Library in Whitechapel High Street and opened  by Lord Rosebury in March 1901. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, the impressive narrow fronted building, clad in Terra-cotta tiles, is fairly small but gives the appearance of being much bigger.  It is one of the few Art Noveau buildings in London.  

An Art Gallery in the East End was the dream of Rev. Samuel Barnett of St Jude’s Church in Commercial Street, and his wife, Henrietta.   As early as the 1880s, Rev. Barnett started to bring art to the East End by staging Art Exhibitions in a local School.  Then in 1899, he started a charity to raise money to build a permanent art gallery near the Whitechapel Library.  

For thirty years the Whitechapel Art Gallery existed side by side with the historic Haymarket, held three times a week.  Given by charter in 1708, the Haymarket was abolished in the 1930s because of the traffic congestion it caused.  

The Obelisk, outside the Art Gallery, had been erected in 1853.  It had been exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1851 and bought by the Trustees of St Mary’s Whitechapel to be used as a refuge for those crossing the wide and busy High Street.  It was removed when the tramway was constructed just before the First World War.  

Somehow over the years the dream of Rev. Barnett, to bring art to the people of the East End, has been lost.  The Art Gallery soon began to specialise in contemporary work and the leading young artists of the day.  This has led to the Whitechapel Art Gallery catering more for West End tastes than East End ones.