Gallery of Modern Art

Glasgow, United Kingdom

Opened in 1996, the Gallery of Modern Art is housed in a neoclassical building in Royal Exchange Square in the heart of Glasgow city centre. Built in 1778 as the townhouse of William Cunninghame of Lainshaw, a wealthy Glasgow Tobacco Lord who made his fortune through the triangular slave trade, the building has undergone a series of different uses. It was bought in 1817 by the Royal Bank of Scotland who later moved onto Buchanan Street; it then became the Royal Exchange. Reconstruction for this use was undertaken by David Hamilton between 1827 and 1832 and resulted in many additions to the building, namely the Corinthian pillars to the Queen Street facade, the cupola above and the large hall to the rear of the old house.

Since its opening in 1996, the gallery has hosted several million visitors. It has a dedicated Education and Access studio, facilitating workshops and artists talks and in the basement a Learning Library. The building also contains a café, free Internet access terminals, multimedia, art, and general book-lending facilities. Exhibits include works by David Hockney, Sebastião Salgado, and Andy Warhol as well as Scottish artists such as John Bellany and Ken Currie.

The mirrored pediment on the exterior of the building is by artist Niki de Saint Phalle, entitled Tympanum (1996). Saint Phalle also installed the mirrored vestibule to the gallery.

In front of the gallery, on the Queen Street pavement, stands an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington sculpted by Carlo Marochetti in 1844. The statue usually has a traffic cone on its head; for many years the authorities regularly removed cones, only for them to be replaced. The jauntily placed cone has come to represent, particularly in tourist guidebooks, the city's light-hearted attitude to authority.

References:

Comments

Your name



Details

Founded: 1778
Category: Museums in United Kingdom

Rating

3.7/5 (based on Google user reviews)

User Reviews

Blain Murphy (4 years ago)
Lovely building. Terrible uninteresting art.
Wesley Free (4 years ago)
Lovely place to visit, There's a good library downstairs to have a sit and read on a rainy day. I spent a very relaxing evening here with my family.
Barry McD (4 years ago)
One of Glasgows finest museums, if you're in to something a bit different.
Tahmina Mili (4 years ago)
This is a place where I can stay all day long and won't be bored. It gives me such sense of being. Very artful and encouraging! Whenever I become a little sad or nervous, I visit here. It is very important place for me.
Donald Browning (4 years ago)
Great place to visit. A shining example of how something with a dark history can be used to improve the future even though it looks nothing like what it did.
Powered by Google

Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings

Historic Site of the week

Jan Hus Memorial

The Jan Hus Memorial stands at one end of Old Town Square. The huge monument depicts victorious Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile 200 years after Hus, and a young mother who symbolises national rebirth. The monument was so large that the sculptor designed and built his own villa and studio where the work could be carried out. It was unveiled in 1915 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Jan Hus' martyrdom. The memorial was designed by Ladislav Šaloun and paid for solely by public donations.

Born in 1369, Hus became an influential religious thinker, philosopher, and reformer in Prague. He was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century. In his works he criticized religious moral decay of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, the Czech patriot Hus believed that mass should be given in the vernacular, or local language, rather than in Latin. He was inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe.