The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Aldgate.
It was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend and opened in 1901. It was one of the first publicly-funded galleries in London. The work of contemporary artists is featured alongside retrospective exhibitions and shows of interest to the local community.
The Whitechapel Gallery played an important part in the history of post-war British art.
Initiated by members of the Independent Group, the gallery brought Pop Art to the attention of the general public as well as introducing some of the artists, concepts, designers and photographers that would define the Swinging Sixties.
By the late 1970s, the preeminence of the Whitechapel Gallery was being threatened by newer venues such as the Hayward Gallery. The Whitechapel Gallery had a major refurbishment in 1986 and completed, in April 2009, a two-year programme of work to incorporate the former Passmore Edwards Library building next door. This has doubled the physical size of the Gallery and nearly tripled the available exhibition space, and now allows the Whitechapel Gallery to remain open to the public year round.
The Whitechapel Gallery exhibited Pablo Picasso’s Guernica in 1938 as part of a touring exhibition organised by Roland Penrose to protest against the Spanish Civil War.
