WHITECHAPEL ART GALLERY
Whitechapel Art Gallery, originally the East End Gallery, in Whitechapel High Street, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets was built 1897-1899 to an Arts and Crafts style by Charles Harrison Townsend and opened in 1901. Its early exhibitions included the works of Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Picasso whose ‘Guernica’ was displayed in 1939 on its only visit to the British Isles. Some of Britain’s most important contemporary artists have held solo exhibitions at the Gallery including Peter Doig (1959-), Ian McKeever (1946-), Lucian Freud and in 1970 David Hockney (1937-) held his first retrospective show at the Whitechapel. In over a century of existence, there have been only six gallery Directors, these include Bryan Robertson 1952–1968 and Nicholas Serota 1976–1988, who went on to become the Director of the Tate Gallery. Suffolk artists who exhibited at the Whitechapel Art Gallery include David Carr, Geoffrey Cyril Petts Clarke, Ray Exworth, Elsie Evelyn Few, David Laing, Charles Messent, Claude Rogers, Isaac Rosenberg and Charles Paget Wade. Its historic building houses nine exhibition spaces, a fully equipped auditorium, a variety of study and studio spaces, as well as a specialist bookshop and acclaimed restaurant.
Website: https://www.whitechapelgallery.org