Abbot Hall Art Gallery is a museum and gallery in Kendal

Kendal

Kendal, anciently known as Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish within the South Lakeland District of Cumbria, England...

, England. Abbot Hall was built in 1759 by Colonel George Wilson, the second son of Daniel Wilson of Dallam Tower, a large house and country estate nearby. It was built on the site of the old Abbot’s Hall, roughly where the museum is today. Before the dissolution of the monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 this was where the Abbot or his representative would stay when visiting from the mother church of St Mary’s, York. The architect is unknown. During the early twentieth century the Grade I listed building was dilapidated and has been restored as an art gallery.

Collection

It has one of the finest collections of George Romney

George Romney (painter)

George Romney was an English portrait painter. He was the most fashionable artist of his day, painting many leading society figures - including his artistic muse, Emma Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson....

’s paintings in Britain and several of his sketchbooks and drawings. Paintings from the eighteenth century include a pair of views of Windermere by Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg. There is also an important group of work by another local artist, Daniel Gardner. It has a significant collection of watercolours, mainly from the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. Many of the greatest watercolourists of the period are represented, including J R Cozens, David Cox, Peter De Wint, John Sell Cotman

John Sell Cotman

John Sell Cotman was an English marine and landscape painter, etcher, illustrator and author, one of the leading lights of the Norwich school of artists.-Early life and work:...

, John Varley

John Varley

John Varley may refer to:* John Varley , English canal engineer* John Varley , English painter and astrologer* John Varley , American science fiction author...

 and Edward Lear

Edward Lear

Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...

. The nineteenth century has J M W Turner's watercolour The Passage of Mount St. Gothard and Windermere(1821).

In 2011 a triptych of Lady Anne Clifford, entitled The Great Picture (currently (2011) in the ownership of the Lakeland Arts Trust) went on display.

The Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 art critic and social commentator, John Ruskin, lived in the Lake District and the gallery has one of the most comprehensive collections of his drawings and watercolours. The modern collection concentrates more on painting but there is a Barbara Hepworth

Barbara Hepworth

Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism, and with such contemporaries as Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo she helped to develop modern art in Britain.-Life and work:Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born on 10 January 1903 in Wakefield,...

 sculpture. There are three works by Ben Nicholson and many others.

The gallery also has a display about English writer Arthur Ransome

Arthur Ransome

Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...

. His desk, typewriter and other memorabilia are exhibited. The gallery is also the official address of The Arthur Ransome Society

The Arthur Ransome Society

The Arthur Ransome Society, also known by its acronym Tars, and whose members refer to themselves as Tars, is a society whose goals are to "celebrate the life, promote the works, and diffuse the ideas of Arthur Ransome"...

.

Exhibitions

Arthur Ransome
2009

Robert Bevan

Robert Bevan

Robert Polhill Bevan was an English painter, draughtsman and lithographer. He was a founding member of the Camden Town Group, the London Group, and the Cumberland Market Group.-Early life:...

 and the Cumberland Market Group

Cumberland Market Group

The Cumberland Market Group was a short-lived artistic grouping in early twentieth century London. The group met in the studio of Robert Bevan in Cumberland Market, the old hay and straw market off Albany Street, and held one exhibition.-History:...

2008

Prunella Clough

Prunella Clough

Prunella Clough was a prominent 20th century British artist. "Her subjects are closely observed details and scenes from the landscape...

Frank Auerbach

Frank Auerbach

Frank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...

 Etchings and Drypoints 1954 - 2006

Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson

Benjamin Lauder "Ben" Nicholson, OM was a British painter of abstract compositions , landscape and still-life.-Background and Training:...

Craigie Aitchison

Craigie Aitchison (painter)

Craigie Aitchison, RA, CBE was a Scottish painter. He was known for his many paintings of the Crucifixion, one of which hangs behind the altar in the chapter house of Liverpool Cathedral.-Education:...

 Prints

2007

Maggi Hambling

Maggi Hambling

Maggi Hambling CBE is an English painter and sculptor. Perhaps her best known public works are a memorial to Oscar Wilde in central London and Scallop, a 4 metre high steel sculpture of two interlocking scallop shells on Aldeburgh beach dedicated to Benjamin Britten...

, No Straight Lines: Waves and Waterfalls

Collecting the Past, Present & Future

2006

David Bomberg

David Bomberg

David Garshen Bomberg was an English painter, and one of the Whitechapel Boys.Bomberg was one of the most audacious of the exceptional generation of artists who studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks, and which included Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, C.R.W. Nevinson and Dora Carrington...

Morandi's Legacy: Influences on British Art

Drawing Inspiration: Contemporary British Drawing

The Oliver Thompson Collection of British Watercolours

2005

Pictures of Innocence

Nicola Hicks: Sculpture, Drawing and Light

Wyndham Lewis: The Bone Beneath the Pulp

Sean Scully

Sean Scully

Sean Scully is an Irish-born American painter and printmaker who has twice been named a Turner Prize nominee. His work is collected in major museums worldwide.-Life and work:...

: Paintings and Works on Paper

Freud

Lucian Freud

Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...

, Auerbach

Frank Auerbach

Frank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...

, Hockney

David Hockney

David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....

 & Rego

Paula Rego

Paula Rego is a painter born in Portugal although she is a naturalised British citizen.-Biography:Rego was born in the Portuguese capital Lisbon, the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company. Although this gave her a comfortable middle class home, the family was...

: Drawing on Copper and Stone

2004

Walter Richard Sickert

Walter Sickert

Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....

Paula Rego

Paula Rego

Paula Rego is a painter born in Portugal although she is a naturalised British citizen.-Biography:Rego was born in the Portuguese capital Lisbon, the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company. Although this gave her a comfortable middle class home, the family was...

 & Graham Sutherland

Graham Sutherland

Graham Vivien Sutherland OM was an English artist.-Early life:He was born in Streatham, attending Homefield Preparatory School, Sutton. He was then educated at Epsom College, Surrey before going up to Goldsmiths, University of London...

: Prints

Celia Paul: Stillness

John Duncan Fergusson

John Duncan Fergusson

John Duncan Fergusson was a Scottish artist, regarded as one of the major artists of the Scottish Colourists school of painting.- Early life :...

: Living Paint

2003

Euan Uglow

Euan Uglow

-Biography:Euan Uglow was born 10 March 1932 in London and as a child lived in Tulse Hill in south London. His father was an accountant, and Uglow went to the local grammar school in Tulse Hill, called Strand School. Afterwards he studied at Camberwell School of Art from 1948 to 1950...

Tony Bevan: Works from Deptford

Bruce Bernard: Artists and their Studios

Exhibitions 2002

Stanley Spencer

Stanley Spencer

Sir Stanley Spencer was an English painter. Much of his work depicts Biblical scenes, from miracles to Crucifixion, happening not in the Holy Land but in the small Thames-side village where he was born and spent most of his life...

RB Kitaj

R. B. Kitaj

Ronald Brooks Kitaj was an American artist who spent much of his life in England.-Life:Born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, near Cleveland, United States, his Hungarian father, Sigmund Benway, left his mother, Jeanne Brooks, shortly after he was born and they were divorced in 1934. His mother was the...

Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley

Bridget Louise Riley CH CBE is an English painter who is one of the foremost proponents of Op art.-Early life:...

Fabric - Reinterpreting the House

2001

Paula Rego

Paula Rego

Paula Rego is a painter born in Portugal although she is a naturalised British citizen.-Biography:Rego was born in the Portuguese capital Lisbon, the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company. Although this gave her a comfortable middle class home, the family was...

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy, OBE is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland.-Life and career:The son of F...

Li Yuan-chia

Li Yuan-chia

Li Yuan-chia was a Chinese artist, poet and curator. He was educated in Taiwan from 1949.-Life:Li Yuan-chia is credited with establishing modern abstract art in Chinese circles...

Sculpture from the Tate

Hughie O'Donoghue

2000

Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

 & the Light of Nature

Paula Rego

Paula Rego

Paula Rego is a painter born in Portugal although she is a naturalised British citizen.-Biography:Rego was born in the Portuguese capital Lisbon, the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company. Although this gave her a comfortable middle class home, the family was...

Goya

Francisco Goya

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...

 - Etchings

Edward Weston

Edward Weston

Edward Henry Weston was a 20th century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his forty-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of...

 - photography

The Art of the Feltmaker

CHORA

Edgar Holloway & Friends

Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers

Matisse

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...

: Jazz

Conrad Atkinson

Pottery by William Plumptre

1999

Callum Innes

Callum Innes

Callum Innes is a Scottish abstract painter and former Turner Prize nominee.-Life and work:Callum Innes was born in Edinburgh. He studied at Gray's School of Art and graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1985....

Queen Victoria's Travels and Family

Henry Moore

Henry Moore

Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....

 - 'Sheep'

Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

 Pottery

The St Ives School

St Ives School

The St Ives School refers to a group of artists living and working in the Cornish town of St Ives.-History:The town became a magnet for artists following the extension to West Cornwall of the Great Western Railway in 1877...

Watercolours from the Permanent Collection
1998

Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley

Bridget Louise Riley CH CBE is an English painter who is one of the foremost proponents of Op art.-Early life:...

1997

Sublime Inspiration
1996

Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud

Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...