The Grundy is an art gallery located in Blackpool

Blackpool

Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...

, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It's eclectic programme consists of regional historic to recent contemporary art exhibitions. Opened in 1911, it is owned and operated by Blackpool Council.

It is a Grade II listed Edwardian

Edwardian architecture

Edwardian architecture is the style popular when King Edward VII of the United Kingdom was in power; he reigned from 1901 to 1910, but the architecture style is generally considered to be indicative of the years 1901 to 1914....

 building. Together with the adjoining Central library

Central Library (Blackpool)

Central Library is a public library in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The building that contains the library and the Grundy Art Gallery has been designated a Grade II listed building by English Heritage.-History:...

 it was listed on 20 October 1983.

History

Blackpool Council commissioned the building of the Grundy Art Gallery in 1908 following a bequest of 33 artworks and a financial gift from brothers John and Cuthbert Grundy, both of whom were local artists. Cuthbert was described at the time as "A leader of the artistic, literary and scientific life of the town." Designed by Cullen, Lockhead and Brown, the gallery has coupled Ionic columns

Ionic order

The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...

 supporting a stone pediment

Pediment

A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...

 bearing a carved Blackpool Borough crest. Together with Central library the gallery opened on 26 October 1911.

In 1912, a purchase fund for new artworks was set up to build upon the 33 artworks. By the late 1930s, the collection and general ambition of the gallery had outgrown the original building, and so an extension of two extra galleries was built. It opened in 1938.

The Grundy now contains nearly 2,000 objects.

Facilities

The Grundy is accessible by steps and there is wheelchair access to the ground floor galleries. The Grundy shop specialises in artist-made jewellery.

Exhibitions

The Grundy organizes a programme of contemporary visual art exhibitions featuring the work of established and emerging artists from the UK and abroad, as well as historically important artwork loaned from major UK institutions and objects from its own permanent collection.

On 25 November 2008, American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 singer

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

 Mary Wilson

Mary Wilson (singer)

Mary Wilson is an American singer, formerlymember of the Motown female singing group The Supremes during the 1960s and 1970s. Wilson was the only singer to be a consistent member of the group in its eighteen-year tenure...

 appeared at the Grundy to launch her collection of the gowns worn by Motown female singing group

Girl group

A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...

 The Supremes

The Supremes

The Supremes, an American female singing group, were the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s.Originally founded as The Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, The Supremes' repertoire included doo-wop, pop, soul, Broadway show tunes, psychedelic soul, and disco...

 - The Story of The Supremes from the Mary Wilson Collection.

Permanent Collection

Grundy's collection, which is displayed as part of the temporary exhibitions programme and is not on permanent display, includes Victorian oils and watercolours, modern British paintings, contemporary prints, jewellery and video, oriental ivories, ceramics, as well as photographs and souvenirs of Blackpool.

Works in the collection include Aircraftsman Shaw by Welsh painter Augustus John

Augustus John

Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....

, Sanctuary Wood by English landscape painter Paul Nash

Paul Nash (artist)

Paul Nash was a British landscape painter, surrealist and war artist, as well as a book-illustrator, writer and designer of applied art. He was the older brother of the artist John Nash.-Early life:...

, The Yellow Funnel by English painter Eric Ravilious

Eric Ravilious

Eric William Ravilious was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver.-Career:Ravilious studied at Eastbourne School of Art, and at the Royal College of Art, where he studied under Paul Nash and became close friends with Edward Bawden.He began his working life as a muralist,...

, The Waterway by English painter Lucy Kemp-Welch

Lucy Kemp-Welch

Lucy Kemp-Welch was a British painter who specialized in painting working horses. She is best known for her illustrations to the 1915 edition of Anna Sewell's Black Beauty...

 and Woods and Forests by English landscape painter

Landscape art

Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...

 John Linnell

John Linnell (painter)

John Linnell was an English landscape painter. Linnell was a naturalist and a rival to John Constable. He had a taste for Northern European art of the Renaissance, particularly Albrecht Dürer. He also associated with William Blake, to whom he introduced Samuel Palmer and others of the...

.

Other artists whose work is represented include: Craigie Aitchison

Craigie Aitchison (painter)

Craigie Aitchison, RA, CBE was a Scottish painter. He was known for his many paintings of the Crucifixion, one of which hangs behind the altar in the chapter house of Liverpool Cathedral.-Education:...

, Richard Ansdell

Richard Ansdell

Richard Ansdell was an English oil painter of animals and genre scenes. He was also an engraver.-Life:Ansdell was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, the son of Thomas Griffiths Ansdell, a freeman who worked at the port, and Anne Jackson. His father died young and Richard was educated at the Bluecoat...

, Thomas Sidney Cooper

Thomas Sidney Cooper

Thomas Sidney Cooper was an English landscape painter noted for his images of cattle and farm animals.Cooper was born at Canterbury, Kent, and as a small child he began to show strong artistic inclinations, but the circumstances of his family did not allow him to received any systematic training...

, Martin Creed

Martin Creed

Martin Creed is an artist and musician. He won the Turner Prize in 2001 for Work No. 227: the lights going on and off, which was an empty room in which the lights went on and off.-Life and work :...

, Thomas Creswick

Thomas Creswick

Thomas Creswick was an English landscape painter and illustrator.-Biography:Creswick was born in Sheffield . He was the son of Thomas Creswick and Mary Epworth and educated at Hazelwood, near Birmingham.At Birmingham he first began to paint...

, Stanhope Forbes

Stanhope Forbes

Stanhope Alexander Forbes R.A., , was an artist and member of the influential Newlyn school of painters...

, Laura Ford

Laura Ford

Laura Ford is a Welsh artist and sculptor who has exhibited her work at the British Art Show and represented Wales at Venice Biennale. She is recognised internationally as one of the UK's leading sculptors and is included in important museum collections worldwide-Early life and career:Ford was...

, Gilbert and George

Gilbert and George

Gilbert & George are two artists who work together as a collaborative duo. Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore have become famous for their distinctive, highly formal appearance and manner and their brightly coloured graphic-style photo-based artworks.-Early life:Gilbert Proesch was...

, Herbert von Herkomer, John Frederick Herring, Sr.

John Frederick Herring, Sr.

John Frederick Herring, Sr. , also known as John Frederick Herring I, was a painter, sign maker and coachman in Victorian England.John F. Herring, Sr. is the painter of the 1848 "Pharoah's Chariot Horses"...

, Edward Atkinson Hornel

Edward Atkinson Hornel

Edward Atkinson Hornel was a Scottish painter of landscapes, flowers, and foliage, with children. He was a cousin of James Hornell....

, Harold Knight, Laura Knight

Laura Knight

Dame Laura Knight, DBE was an English Impressionist painter known for painting the world of London's theatre, ballet and circus.-Early life and education:...

, Henry Herbert La Thangue, Peter Liversidge

Peter Liversidge

Peter Liversidge is a British contemporary artist notable for his diverse artistic practice and use of proposals.-Personal:...

, David Roberts

David Roberts (painter)

David Roberts RA was a Scottish painter. He is especially known for a prolific series of detailed lithograph prints of Egypt and the Near East that he produced during the 1840s from sketches he made during long tours of the region . These, and his large oil paintings of similar subjects, made him...

, Lindsay Seers, William Shayer, Julian Trevelyan

Julian Trevelyan

Julian Otto Trevelyan, RA was a British artist and poet.Trevelyan was the only child of Robert Calverley Trevelyan and his wife Elizabeth van der Hoeven...

, Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven

Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven

Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven , Belgian painter, was born at Warneton in West Flanders, and received instruction in drawing and modelling from his father, the sculptor Barthélemy Verboeckhoven...

 and Benjamin Williams Leader

Benjamin Williams Leader

Benjamin Williams Leader RA was an English landscape painter.-Early years and training:Leader was born in Worcester as Benjamin Leader Williams, the son, and first child of eleven children, of notable civil engineer Edward Leader Williams and Sarah Whiting...

.

Grundy Art in Popular Culture

In 1998 Harold Knight's painting, A Girl Writing at a Desk was used as the image on the front cover of the Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....

 books A Room of One's Own

A Room of One's Own

A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on 24 October 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928...

and Three Guineas

Three Guineas

Three Guineas is a book-length essay by Virginia Woolf, published in June 1938.-Background:Although Three Guineas is a work of non-fiction, it was initially conceived as a "novel-essay" which would tie up the loose ends left in her earlier work, A Room of One's Own...

, published by Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

.