The City's secret treasure: Guildhall Art Gallery

Q. What is the Guildhall Art Gallery

A. The Guildhall Art Gallery is the public gallery of the art collection of the Corporation of London, the local authority of the City of London. The building provides a permanent and purpose-built home for the Corporation's unique collection.

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Q. And where is it

A. You'll find it nestling up to the 15th-century Guildhall, right at the heart of the City.

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Q. And the address

A. Guildhall Yard, off Gresham Street, London EC2.

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Q. What's the story

A. It was established in 1885 and flourished under its first director Sir Alfred Temple. It was largely destroyed by a German air raid in May 1941 - luckily the works of art had already been removed - though some of the collection was temporarily re-housed in the remaining structure after 1945. However, the bomb-damaged building was finally demolished in 1987 and the works put in storage or lent out. A new building was designed and scheduled to open in 1991.

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Q. How about the new building

A. The new building was designed by Richard Gilbert Scott - whose father, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, was the architect of Bankside Power Station, now the home to the Tate Modern. When the foundations were dug it was found that the site was right on top of a Roman amphitheatre. Consequently plans had to be radically revised: this was too important a find to be covered up again, so it was agreed that the remains would be made accessible to the public and somehow incorporated into the new gallery's structure.

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Q. And are they open

A. Not yet, but Vivien Knight, curator of the Guildhall Art Gallery, told the answerbank that all should be ready for spring 2002.

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Q. So when did the gallery finally open

A. It opened to the public in August 1999, and was formally opened by the Queen on 2 November 1999.

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Q. What's in the collection

A. The Corporation began collecting works of art in the 17th century, when it commissioned portraits of the judges appointed to assess property claims in the wake of the Great Fire of London of 1666. Its collection now comprises 4,000 works of art - paintings, drawings and sculpture - ranging from portraits of kings and queens to depictions of naval battles, from period views of historic London to the work of contemporary artists. Since the Second World War, the collection has concentrated on London subjects.

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The gallery is also home to the largest collection of works by Sir Matthew Smith. After his death, over a thousand paintings, drawings and sketchbooks were left in Smith's studio. Mary Keene, a close friend of the artist, presented this unique collection to the Corporation of London in 1974.

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Another major bequest is the Harold Samuel Collection of Dutch and Flemish 17th-century paintings, which has been described as the most important private collection of such works ever bequeathed to a public body in Britain. Most of these paintings are hung in the Lord Mayor's residence, Mansion House, so there is only limited availability to the public.

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Q. What's on public show

A. The gallery has about 250 works of art on show at any one time. The display is re-hung annually and there is also a programme of smaller temporary exhibitions which explore different themes in the collection.

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A recent exhibition of watercolours of City scenes by William Alistair Macdonald has been the most popular to date.

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Q. Any highlights

A. Perhaps the most popular works in the Guildhall collection are its Victorian pictures, including well-known favourites like Millais's My First Sermon and My Second Sermon, Landseer's The First Leap and Rossetti's La Ghirlandata, as well as a large landscape by John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, Millais's The Woodsman's Daughter, Frederick Lord Leighton's The Music Lesson, Tissot's Too Early, William Lionel Wyllie's The Opening of Tower Bridge and Sir E.J. Poynter's Israel in Egypt.

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The gallery also houses the enormous painting The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar by John Singleton Copley. A double-height wall was specially incorporated into the building's design in order to accommodate it.

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View images from the collection of Guildhall Art Gallery at http://collage.nhil.com/

Find the gallery's website at http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/leisure_heritage/libraries_archives_museums_galleries/guildhall_art_gallery/index.htm

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By Simon Smith