Nearest Online Tour Guide page: Exhibition Square

With seven centuries of art including items on loan from the National Gallery in London, York’s Art Gallery is a bit of a treat.

York City Art Gallery in the snow

Originally built in 1879 to house the second Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition – the first, inspired by London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, was held in a temporary structure in the grounds of York Asylum on Bootham – the building became the City Art Gallery in 1892.

The Gallery was paid for with a bequest from John Burton, a local businessman and art fan, and was one of the first in York to be lit by electricity. Four roundels depicting local artistic personages of note sit above the five arches of its portico (for the record, they are John Carr, architect, John Cammidge, musician, John Flaxman, sculptor, and William Etty, the painter whose statue adorns Exhibition Square).

Edward Taylor, the gallery’s architect, had grand plans for the building’s facade. Sadly, his more ornate Italian renaissance designs never came to pass.

Why visit York Art Gallery?
It contains works ranging from 14th century Italian panels and paintings by 17th century Dutch masters to more recent works by L S Lowry and David Hockney. A lot of the stuff is on permanent loan from the National Gallery in London so is definitely worth seeing.

The gallery also hosts a regular display of temporary exhibitions.

What’s the entrance fee to York Art Gallery?
It’s a public art gallery, so entrance is free.

And what about William Etty?
The gallery has specialised in collecting the works of William Etty, a member of the Royal Academy and York’s most famous artistic son. Most recently York Art Gallery acquired Preparing For a Fancy Dress Ball (1833) which can be seen in the gallery as a foretaste of an Etty exhibition scheduled for summer 2011.