Hiding in plain view, right before your eyes, are two dozen of the greatest artists to ever live. But where? Our art gallery and facades correspondent Angus Young finds out.
Tourists and residents alike are often encouraged to look up when visiting Hull city centre. Among the many historic buildings worth having a second glance at is the City Hall. However, while nearly every image of the Edwardian landmark features the front facade overlooking Queen Victoria Square, the rear end tends to get unfairly ignored. That’s a shame because once you gaze skywards an extraordinary collection of portraits of internationally-renowned artists comes into view.
Overall, 26 different painters are captured in a series of intricately-carved stonework cameos high up on the walls of what used to be Hull’s first municipal art gallery. They include Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Turner, Van Dyck and Ruebens. Eight overlook Chariot Street while nine can be seen from Carr Lane and another nine from Paragon Street. Each portrait is flanked by two female figures with the name of each artist set in ornamental stone beneath.
Opened in 1910, the Victoria Art Gallery formed part of the new City Hall development which was conceived as an ambitious statement of civic pride to rival similar grand public halls in other cities. Both were designed by Joseph Henry Hirst, Hull’s first City Architect whose later work included Beverley Road Baths, the Carnegie Library and Newland School for Girls.
Who decided on which artist should feature on the windowless walls of the gallery is not known. It could have been Hirst or sculptor and stonemason Gilbert Seale who won the contract to supply decorative stonework for the gallery’s exterior. Seale was one the country’s leading architectural stonemasons and had just finished a six-year commission completing plasterwork and numerous carvings at the London’s Central Criminal Court, otherwise known as the Old Bailey, before turning his attention to Hull.
Seale’s hand-written estimate for the work at the art gallery is held at the Hull History Centre archives and records the sum as £1,252 and ten shillings. Included in this was the price for each artists’ head set on a medallion – £12 and ten shillings. The History Centre’s archive also includes a single surviving architectural drawing of one of the proposed carved portraits and surrounding stonework detailing. Again, there’s no clue to establish whether the drawing is by Hirst or Seale.
Either way, once the stonework on the art gallery had been completed it seems there was a dispute over the final bill. In another letter held in the archive dated December 1909, Seale appears to challenge Hirst over Hull Corporation’s insistence on paying a lower price for his work. “I should like to point out that I purchased real-sized models of sculptured frieze and no.26 models of portrait heads for which I made no change, although it was understood that I should work from cartoons,” wrote Seale. “Under these circumstances and having regard to the very close price of my schedule, I trust you will allow the amount to pass as tendered.”
In a reply, Hirst points out that Seale had not been prepared to certify for any amount above £940, suggesting this figure was the limit the Corporation was prepared to pay. How the dispute was resolved is not known but Seale’s stunning stonework still survives today as a reminder of an era of architectural extravagance.
The gallery only lasted until 1927 when the collections of artworks it held was transferred to the new Ferens Art Gallery across the road. The space it occupied was renamed the Mortimer Suite in 1931 and has been used for exhibitions, meetings, events and live performance ever since.