New
Walk Museum and Art Gallery is situated within the historic
New Walk area of the city. In 1849 the Literary and Philosophical
Society formally presented to the town its various collections,
which have grown and developed over the last 150 years into
one of the premier museums in the region. New Walk Museum
has been the inspiration for many people including Lord Attenborough
and Sir David Attenborough, who pursued their love of art
and natural history as a result of spending their formative
years as regular visitors to the galleries. Leicester's oldest
museum has wide-ranging collections spanning the natural and
cultural world. The museum has a coffee shop, and is also
a venue for musical performances and weddings.
Gimson-Background to the project
In 1849 Leicester’s town museum, centred on the Literary and
Philosophical Society’s collection of arts, antiquities and
natural history, was opened in New Walk. In 1885 an art gallery
was added.
Following Ernest Gimson’s death in 1919, members of his family
donated examples of his work both to the Museum and Art Gallery
and to University College, Leicester.
William Arthur Evans was a wealthy local businessman and chairman
of Imperial Typewriters. He lived in Inglewood, the house
designed by Gimson, from 1913. In 1904 he married Nancy Goddard,
was one of three daughters of Joseph Goddard, a Leicester
chemist who developed Goddard’s silver polish. They shared
an interest in the Arts & Crafts Movement. They and several
other members of both the Evans and Goddard families commissioned
Arts & Crafts pieces including furniture from Peter Waals.
Examples of this furniture were given to the Museum and Art
Gallery in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Work by Ernest Gimson was included in a ground-breaking exhibition,
Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts, organised by Peter
Floud at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1952. In 1969 Leicester
marked the 50th anniversary of Gimson’s death with an exhibition
organised by Lionel Lambourne. This was the first time that
a comprehensive range of Gimson’s work had been shown in public
and was the beginning of a reappraisal of his reputation.
In 1978 Leicester Museums Service published a catalogue of
its collections,
'Ernest Gimson and the Cotswold Group of Craftsmen', which
has been revised
by Annette Carruthers and republished in 2007.
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New Walk Museum and Art Gallery 53 New Walk, Leicester LE1 7EA