Christopher Whitehead’s well-researched book, The Public Art Museum in Nineteenth Century Britain: The Development of the National Gallery, contributes significantly to the narrative of Britain’s first public museum. The National Gallery was originally conceived in the early nineteenth century as a public institution accessible to the general population. As the museum evolved throughout the nineteenth century, an attempt was made to accommodate the often conflicting desires and ideas of museologists, artists, donors, politicians, and the public. A debate arose during the mid-nineteenth century over the appearance and function of the public art museum. Should it be a public educational institution or should it attempt to elevate the public’s tastes? Via a thorough examination of the development of London’s National Gallery from the 1840s through the 1870s, Whitehead places the National Gallery, and the nineteenth-century public art museum in general, within the context of this debate and argues that the mid-nineteenth century witnessed a transition in the art museum from a place to elevate taste to one of mass education.

Whitehead is specifically concerned with the architecture and decoration of the museum, how the works were hung and displayed, the institutional formation of the museum, and its role in the new instructive purpose of the art museum. Through the reconstruction and analysis of original architectural plans, Whitehead gains a meaningful perspective on this debate. The images provided are useful, but the author might have been better served by presenting these forty-five black-and-white plans and drawings alongside the related text rather than grouped together in the middle. To tell this story, he divides the book into two sections. Part 1 examines all British collections, their interrelationships and their development into separate territories. Whitehead discusses how the museum was designed to consider the aesthetics of the viewing environment and to have broad public appeal; he examines which gallery designs proved most instructional, and considers how the architecture of the new public museum contributed to the development of art history. In doing so, he lays out and examines nineteenth-century museological theory. Part 2 focuses more specifically on the National Gallery, analyzing how the issues of this debate were carried into practice. He considers the consolidation of the National Gallery, its development as a public art museum, and the politics surrounding it. Whitehead relies heavily on archived correspondence between designers, curators, and the British government, illuminating the complexity of the National Gallery’s development.

Whitehead begins his examination with a broad synopsis of the development of art display in Britain from the private gallery to the public art museum, and the change in exhibition from ahistorical and decorative to more historical and educational. Whitehead relates the development and characteristics of nineteenth-century museology to contemporary tendencies in historiography and connoisseurship. He examines what curators thought to be the appropriate wall color in the galleries, how the paintings should be hung, the galleries illuminated, and exhibition literature presented. What history of art should be told? Should the paintings be chronologically or geographically organized? Whitehead then more specifically lays out the historical arguments as to which architectural style was most appropriate for the public museum. Should the new institution be historical or modern? Should the new building reflect practicality (lighting, exhibition wall space, movement of masses throughout the space) or should it be decorative and opulent? While many pushed for more practical designs, others argued that “the public has come to regard the decorations of the museum as part of the exhibition” (49). Whitehead further examines how museum theory influenced and informed the planning of museum interiors and the development of “distinct museological typologies associated with the three national museums in London” (69). Despite proposals for the unification of the British collections, art continued to be separated from archeology and fine art from applied art. Part 1 concludes with an examination of the organization and architecture of the museum, and reveals that the collection was still very much connected to politics. He writes that museum construction was in a state of perpetual flux: “The management of public construction was in continuous redefinition between 1850 and 1876. This resulted from the development of administration procedures and also from the succession of diverse, and often contrasting, political influences to which public construction was subject” (88).

The strength of Whitehead’s text lies in the second part, as the first is largely used to set the stage and demonstrate how museum space has contributed to public attitudes towards art, art history, and art appreciation. Part 2 more specifically examines the National Gallery from 1850 to 1876 and its construction and organization. Trafalgar Square was chosen as a site for the National Gallery in 1831 because it was considered the center of London and was equally accessible to all social classes in the city. The discussion over its location, purpose, and organization, however, did not end in 1831. Whitehead begins his analysis of the National Gallery by looking at the “channels through which debate on the National Gallery was conducted and the relationship of debate to museological developments in the early 1850s” (125). He argues that the completed National Gallery was a result of compromise rather than a singular vision. Ralph Nicholson Wornum, Keeper of the National Gallery from 1855–77, called for a systematic and historical arrangement of paintings that was opposed by many. Whitehead writes, “The building projects at the National Gallery in the 1860s and 1870s show how the uneasy balance of collaboration and control between museum officers and architects was engineered” (177). The results of these negotiations were the Pennethorne alterations and the E.M. Barry Rooms. Both of these additions forced the architects to collaborate with museum authorities, making concessions for the display of artworks and the navigation of public space. Whitehead argues that there was great difficulty in navigating between architectural magnificence and functionalism. Begun in 1868 and completed in 1876, the Barry Rooms added seven new exhibition rooms at the east end. Whitehead argues that the Barry Rooms can be considered “the underwhelming culmination of over two decades of debate on the National Gallery and on museological theory” (203). They were simply additions to the existing structure, rather than a new building, and the result of decades of rhetoric and planning. After Barry was selected, Austen Henry Layard laid out a new plan that reintroduced the principles outlined in the 1840s and 1850s, emphasizing the display, illumination, and public access to the artworks. The result of Barry’s design was the combination of opulent décor with an emphasis on the display of artworks. Whitehead argues that Barry’s designs were a significant compromise—nowhere close to the designs theorized by professionals for decades. While the design was functional, the decoration was seen as excessive by many, obscuring the view of the artworks.

Recent publications on museums and collecting, such as Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture by Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago’s edited compilation of essays Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), and Bettina Messias Carbonell’s Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004) have focused on the emerging field of museum studies, examining it more broadly through multiple case studies that illustrate how museums have shaped society and culture. This trend contrasts with Whitehead’s specific historical study of the formation of the National Gallery in London. In spite of its narrow focus, Whitehead’s book is an important resource that reveals why none of the National Gallery’s grand plans were ever realized. His strengths are his analysis of archival correspondence, plans, and designs that were integral to the eventual development of the National Gallery and its significant contribution to the scholarship of the public art museum—a contribution often overlooked in the field of art history. Whitehead’s narrative, however, leads to many larger questions, which are for the most part left unanswered. Whitehead provides little interpretation and analysis outside of the National Gallery itself. For example, there is no larger examination of the public art museum outside of London to provide comparisons and perspective, nor is there an examination of the public response to the National Gallery that would answer why there was a trend to educate the public. The text does not consider how the development of the public art museum influenced art reception and criticism. Those looking for a more interdisciplinary analysis of the public art museum might be disappointed. There is no discussion of how the development of the public art museum coincided with the growth of other public institutions and attractions such as department stores, public parks, and World Expositions, or the growing popularity of travel and tourism in the nineteenth century; nor does it connect the National Gallery more broadly to the design reform movement in architecture. As meticulous and comprehensive as Whitehead’s book is, I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone who is not already well-versed in the scholarship of museum history, as it would be difficult to fully grasp the subject matter or place it into a larger context.