The National Gallery is conveniently located right on Trafalgar Square – you can take a stroll around London too. The National Gallery has an excellent collection of Western European paintings from the 13th to the 19th centuries. There are also interesting workshops and lectures on the last Friday of every month to help you learn more about the history of the works on display.
London National Gallery is one of the largest art galleries of the British capital. There are more than two thousand masterpieces of Western European painting from the XII to the XX centuries in it, and all pictures in the exposition are located in chronological order.
The gallery was opened on April 9, 1839, but the date of its foundation is considered to be May 1824 – then was bought a collection of paintings by Angerstein, numbering 38 works. The gallery’s collection was enriched both by the government and by outside donors, such as George Beaumont.
Initially the gallery was located on Pall Mall Street, but the steady increase in the number of paintings demanded more space, and in 1831 construction began on a building designed by Wilkins. In 1838 the new gallery on the north side of Trafalgar Square was opened to the public.
Features
The National Gallery has a truly enormous number of masterpieces of art, it is impossible to see them all in one visit. So when you’re going to the exhibition, we advise you to identify the paintings (periods, works of specific painters) that you’d like to see first, and make a rough itinerary.
In addition to the collection of masterpieces of painting, the National Gallery is notable for several nice features. For example, in the Espresso Bar or The National Café you can relax and drink coffee, and in the souvenir shops and art stores you can buy souvenirs, books and copies of paintings exhibited in the gallery.
If you like, you can listen to audio lectures or view multimedia presentations about paintings and their authors in the Sainsbury’s Wing or in the already mentioned Espresso Bar.
Address: Trafalgar Square, London, WC2N 5DN.
Subway stations: Charing Cross and Leicester Square.
Open 10am-6pm, Fridays until 9pm.
Admission is free.