Whitechapel Gallery

Address: | 77–82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX |
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Phone: | 020-7522 7888 |
Website: | |
Opening times: | Tues–Sun 11:00–18:00, also Thur 11:00–21:00 |
How to get there: | Tube: Aldgate East |
Entry fee: | Free |
Additional information: | Café and shop |
Founded in 1901, the Whitechapel is a leading venue for modern and contemporary art, with a strong programme of temporary exhibitions. Founded in 1901, the gallery has its origins in the exhibitions of paintings organised by Canon Samuel A. Barnett (1844–1913) and his wife Henrietta (1851–1936) in St Jude’s National Schools in Whitechapel from 1881. Barnett shared the widespread Victorian belief in the civilising power of culture; the exhibitions were intended as a moral education for the citizens of a deprived East End area, as well as to ‘lessen the dead ugliness of their lives’. The Whitechapel’s distinguished Arts and Crafts building, with its arched entrance, was designed in 1897 by Charles Harrison Townsend. The narrow site, with exhibition space on two levels, was internally reorganised in 1982 and there is a current plan to extend into the adjacent old public library building. |
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MUSEUMS & GALLERIES OF LONDON
Details below are taken from our Blue Guide Museums and Galleries of London. This is a 2005 title, here generally updated for website address and opening times, with useful comments from some of the museums themselves. More recent information is given in Emily Barber's magisterial new Blue Guide London, "Exceptional update to a classic and useful guide to this amazing city" (Amazon reader review).
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