The second of 2 articles on Dulwich Picture Gallery’s past entrances, and some additional eccentricities, by Dr Jan Piggott, former keeper of the archives at Dulwich College
See first article
Entrance by Charles Barry Junior, 1866 Reproduced by kind permission of the Governors of Dulwich College
CHARLES BARRY’S IVY CLAD ENTRANCE An extension with an enlarged entrance to replace the lobby shown in the engraving (see Tuesday’s article) was designed by Charles Barry Junior, architect of the New College at Dulwich, in 1866, at the same time as New College started to go up. Barry’s porch included lavatories; it was ornamented with terra cotta finials and parapet in the Italianate manner of his father’s work at Trentham in Staffordshire and other grand mansions. This remained the entrance until the Gallery was rebuilt after the Second World War.
Reynolds 'Recovery From Sickness' DPG 102
The figure in the top hat (see below) is T. F. Hodgkins (d. 1909), the Curator. In 1872 he lost his temper with some sixth-formers from the College who burst out laughing when they found him touching up Reynolds’s ‘angel picture’ Recovery from Sickness in one of the public rooms.
HODGKINS WITH DOG INSIDE GALLERY
In the picture below Hodgkins is shown with his dog in the gallery with paintings by Reynolds and Gainsborough. When the badly bomb-damaged Gallery was rebuilt after the War, the great Sir John Summerson (d. 1992) of the Soane Museum suggested the demolition of Charles Barry’s Victorian entrance, and pointed out that Soane’s original sketch plans showed the entrance of the Gallery at the rear, at the great doors where the entrance to the shop is today.
Hodgkins and his dog. Reproduced by kind permission of the Governors of Dulwich College
An Academician, Arthur Davis, was Honorary Consultant Architect to the Governors of the College at the time. He was a partner in Mewès and Davis, architects of splendour at the Ritz Hotel, Luton Hoo and Polesden Lacy. The Governors agreed to restoration of the Gallery ‘as near as possible in its original form’, and accepted the demolition of the Barry porch which Davis called an ‘ugly and ill-considered excrescence’.
Dr. Jan Piggott, former keeper of the archives at Dulwich College, is the author of Dulwich College – A History, 1619–2008, published June 2008 by Dulwich College, and available at the Gallery bookshop; this contains sections on the history of the Picture Gallery until 1995.
Another local history article by Jan Piggott – Canaletto on the South Circular
