Getik/hall Memories. By A. G. Temple. (J. Murray. 16s. net.)—
Like his father and his grandfather before him, Mr. Temple has served the Corporation all his life, and his reminisoences of the Guildhall are ourious and amusing. The best chapters relate to the Art Gallery, of which Mr. Temple has been the Director since its opening in 1886. Between 1890 and 1907 Mr. Temple organized a number of very remarkable loan. exhibitions, illustrating not only British but also foreign art—notably of the French, Spanish, Flemish, and Danish schools—and he has a good deal to say about his adventures among collectors at home and abroad in the course of his search for fine pieturee. He was exceptionally successful in persuading foreign owners to lend their treasures—such as the Van Eyck portrait from Hermannstadt in Transylvania—and he Intro- duced to the public innumerable novelties, such as Mr. Pierpont Morgan's decorative panels by Fragonard, the modern Spanish painters, and Hammershoi, the delightful Danish painter of in- teriors, whose name was unknown here till Mr. Temple showed a number of his works at the Guildhall. Mr. Temple says that the average net cost of the fifteen exhibitions, which were visited by three million people, was only £750. The Corporation never spent money to greater advantage, mainly because it gave the Director a free hand.
Previous page
