Kelvinside

Yesterday, after lunch, Phyllis and I took a drive over to Glasgow for a visit to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvinside.

Please click here to have a look at other photographs I took that day. Also, here for another photograph taken inside the building by BENID.

Kelvingrove reopened on 11 July 2006 after a three-year closure for major refurbishment. The work cost around twenty eight million pounds and includes a new restaurant (which we saw but didn't eat in) and a large basement extension to its display space to accommodate the eight thousand exhibits now on display.

It's a beautiful building, once dwarfed by her big sister, long since demolished, erected to house various international exhibitions (click here for more information), the profits from which ultimately paid for the museum and art gallery itself.

One could imagine someone obsessed with the Victorian era, perhaps also with delusions of grandeur, having the time of his or her life at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

I had the time of my life.

The museum houses Christ of Saint John of the Cross by Salvador Dalí and was acquired by Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery for £8,200.00, a price considered high at the time. The canvas was slashed by a visitor to the museum in 1961, but has since been successfully restored. In 1993, the painting was moved to the city's St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, but returned to Kelvingrove for its reopening in July 2006. It won a poll to decide Scotland's favorite painting in 2006, with 29% of the vote! I'd never say it's my favourite painting, but it does have a certain beauty, I must say.

Internationally, we have a reputation for being mean. I wondered if there is some truth in this when I found Kelvingrove is now Scotland's most visited attraction. You see, dear reader, there is no entry fee. Many accents were to be heard inside the place, though, not only visiting, but working. It was very busy and had a fabulous atmosphere. Like Johnny Morris in building form: making learning fun. I was told the stuffed farm animals were placed there for the benefit of Glasgow's children, many of whom had never seen a chicken, pig, sheep or cow before.

I realise how lucky I am, not only able to see these delicious exhibits, but to see the world at large.