London: Must-See Museums (and Galleries)

I could very well have spent our entire holiday just roaming the galleries at the Victoria and Albert.  It would have been very enjoyable and instructive, and I would have eventually learned to find my way home on foot without getting lost.

But there was the matter of the wish-list: all those interesting places that were not top tier (no Hampton Court, no Big Ben, no London Eye), but perfect destinations now that we had more than a few days in London.

So off we went to:

The British Library.  (Yikes! How did a librarian miss this one on previous visits?)
Highly recommended to anyone who has ever read a book, or ever had an interest in History.   Magna Carta, the genuine article, is right there along with all kinds of other fascinating documents. How could I not be impressed? The library website is also superlative.

The British Library is sleek and modern.

The Courtauld Gallery.  The Courtauld, located in elegant Somerset House on "museum mile", describes itself as one of the finest little art galleries in the world, and I absolutely agree.  The collection is small and perfect, representing art from the Renaissance to the 20th century with an emphasis on Samuel Courtauld's favourites, the impressionists and post-impressionists.  The special exhibit while we were visiting was "'Young Picasso", but even with that draw, the gallery was uncrowded.  There was plenty of time to to get up close and personal with familiar paintings.  I was surprised at how many I recognized.

Even if The Courtauld is not in your immediate future, check out the amazing virtual tour and take all the time you want. You will have the gallery to yourself.

Somerset House:  the Courtauld is in there somewhere.

Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere.  You feel as if you could order a drink--if only the bar-maid looked less bored.    

       
The Saatchi Gallery.  Yes, that Saatchi, since you ask. Charles...the one who throttled his wife, Nigella Lawson, in a London restaurant.  Coincidentally, when I attempted to open the gallery website so that I could cut and paste the link, this is the message that popped up on the screen:

 Dangerous

This page on the domain saatchigallery.com contains active threats and is not recommended for browsing. The access to this website has been blocked for your protection.

Nigella needed to read something like that when she hooked up with this guy 10 years ago.

But never mind.  The gallery was fascinating: small, edgy, and contemporary. The exhibits change frequently. The one we saw was completely devoted to Russian art, and such art --weird and wonderful.   It was the only gallery where I took photos because I knew I wouldn't find these works online or in any book other than the exhibit catalog. 

In the Saatchi Gallery.  That huge painting is on stapled-together, flattened cardboard boxes.

The Tate Britain. On the strength of loving the Tate Modern, we decided to spend some time at The Tate Britain, home to British art from 1500 to the present. And we did enjoy a re-acquaintance with familiar artists we don't think about too often -- Holbein, Sergant, Whistler, Constable, Millais etc.  And then there is Turner.  The Tate has a ton of Turner.  There is a Turner room filled with some of the thousand or so Turner paintings in the collection.  I never need to see another Turner again.  Ever.

The Wallace Collection, comprising art and artifacts amassed by the Wallace family during the 18th and 19th centuries, is surely one of the most interesting galleries we visited.  First, there is the gallery itself in Hertford House, the Wallace family's former London town house.  The opulently decorated interior with its marble fireplaces, inlaid surfaces, intricate mouldings and painted ceilings is a marvel--a candy-box setting for all the pretty things the Wallaces managed to acquire.   

Home Sweet Hertford House.  The Wallace Collection lives here.

I confess to imagining the painted, pouffed, and embroidered Wallace aristocrats as a bunch of Georgian shopaholics with a taste for fancy furniture, porcelain, and rococo paintings.   I wonder what their army of parlour maids thought as they dusted yet another gilded frame,  porcelain cherub or suit of armour.  Oops...I forgot about the armour. The basement at Hertford house if full of it.  Obviously one Wallace was enamoured of half-naked shepherdesses and another got off on armour.  How interesting.  At least there was room for everything.

Fragonard's, The Swing, is part of the Wallace Collection 

Our Wallace visit was followed by a trip to (of all places) Pollock's Toy Museum. No fancy address for this assemblage of teddies, doll houses, toy cars and trains, puppets etc.  We entered a narrow old row house in Camden Town, climbed rickety stairs and found various exhibits packed into tiny rooms.  In its own way, Pollocks is just as eccentric as The Wallace.  Both museums came to be because of the particular interests that inspired these acquisitive families, although Samuel Pollock did, at least, have a toy shop in addition to his collection of old toys.
 
On our way back to Gloucester Tce. I thought of these two very different collections (and their origins), and I couldn't help but imagine practical, personal applications.  Perhaps there was no need to clean out our basement, after all. I began to envision the various exhibits that might await a curator's touch:  Ladies' Fashion in the Late 20th Century; A Fisher-Price Fantasy; Technology: 1980-2005;  Barbie and Friends Through the Years. And that's just a start. There is plenty more.  I could even stipulate in my will that our daughters take on development of The Ryan Collection -- after all, one is a librarian, and the other has a degree in museum studies. They have the skills.   And it would sure save me a lot of work.