Books: The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 1873-2000

Published histories of Britain’s leading civic art galleries and museums, outside the national institutions in London, are rare.

Even among the great cultural bastions in London, while the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum have commissioned official accounts of their existence, Tate and the National Gallery have been less forthcoming.

Beyond England, the picture is patchy, apart from a fine recent history of the National Gallery of Ireland.

Over the past 20 years cultural historians, notably Giles Waterfield, have taken an increasingly academic interest in the development of civic galleries and museums during the high-minded Victorian period, which were then buffeted by economic vicissitudes during the 20th century.

Many lessons can be learned from these accounts by the current generation of trustees, directors, curators, conservators and educators.

Galleries and museums in Britain were built on the foundations of national and civic pride, coupled with the imperatives of moral, educational and aesthetic improvement.

Yet outside the relatively well-insulated fiefdoms of the national bodies in London, the regional city temples of art and history have proved to have less secure footings during periods of economic stress.

In the economically challenged cities of the north of England, galleries and museums are in very serious danger of being bled dry.

With heritage sites, cultural development and tourism at the heart of any future renaissance of these communities, the grotesque imbalance of funding between the well-fed national institutions and the emaciated regional galleries and museums points to a radical and fairer redistribution of cultural funding across all the English cities as something that is increasingly urgent.

Unauthorised account

What makes the new history of the Walker Art Gallery – arguably still the jewel in Liverpool’s cultural crown – so engrossing and enthralling, is that this is an unauthorised account of what, to many independent observers, is the greatest civic institution in England dedicated to the fine arts outside London.

This detailed history runs from the Walker Art Gallery’s foundation in 1873 up until 2000, just before the current leadership team took over and began leading the institutions on Merseyside along a path of social inclusion and democratic access, through an expanded set of estates, notably in the creation of the  Museum of Liverpool, which has led to far greater visitor numbers.

The two authors, Edward Morris and Timothy Stevens, were appointed as curators at the Walker in the 1960s, with Stevens departing in the late 1980s and Morris retiring just before the millennium. Both writers know the history of the Walker inside out, and it is remarkable how much institutional memory they have digested and transmitted.

This is delivered with an appropriate curatorial passion and attention to detail, never forgetting that it is the hard-won and outstanding collections that are at the heart of the displays for the various communities present on Merseyside, whether rich, middling or poor.

By the 1870s the need for a suitable new fine art gallery to embellish the great mercantile port of Liverpool, second city of the British Empire, was fulfilled by the gift of the neoclassical building from the mayor, the brewer Andrew Barclay Walker.

The early history of the gallery was dominated by the art-loving businessman Philip Rathbone (1828-1895) and the annual autumn exhibitions of contemporary art that lasted until the outbreak of the second world war; and since then by the John Moores and Peter Moores exhibitions of contemporary art.

Inspirational figures

The later history of the Walker Art Gallery by Morris and Stevens is dominated by inspirational figures such as the civic leader Vere Cotton, who steered the gallery from 1930 until his death in 1970; curators such as Frank Lambert, who was director from 1931 to 1951; and Mary Bennett, who joined the staff in 1956; as well as the conservator Jack Coburn Witherop, who cleaned much of the picture collection between 1950 and 1977.

To read about these remarkable personalities is to be reminded that it is dedicated individuals who bring meaning to the civic collections entrusted to them and the urban audiences they serve.

Stephen Lloyd is the curator of the Derby Collection at Knowsley Hall. He was the chairman of the International Council of Museums’ Committee of Fine Art Museums and Collections from 2004 to 2010