Arnolfini

Infobox Historic building


caption=The Arnolfini seen from across the harbour.
name=Arnolfini
location_town=Bristol
location_country=England
map_type=Bristol
latitude=51.449174
longitude=-2.597222
architect=Richard Shackleton Pope
client=
engineer=
construction_start_date=1831
completion_date=1836
date_demolished=
cost=
structural_system=
style=
size=

The Arnolfini is an arts centre in Bristol, England. It has a changing programme of exhibitions, live art and dance events, poetry and book readings, talks, lectures and discussions and cinema. The exhibitions are free. There is also a well stocked bookshop with a wide range of art and unusual nonart books and a Cafe Bar, run by the same people as the nearby Bordeaux Quay restaurant. It is funded by a wide range of sources, mainly Bristol City council and Arts Council England.

The gallery occupies Bush House, a 19th century Grade II* listed tea warehouse situated on the side of the Floating Harbour in Bristol city centre. [cite web | title=Bush House | work=Images of England | url=http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?id=380204 | accessdate=2006-08-18] The architect was Richard Shackleton Pope, who constructed first the south part of the warehouse (1831) then extended it to the north in 1835–1836. It has a rock-faced plinth, three storeys of rectangular windows recessed within tall round arches, and a shallow attic. Many elements seen first in this building recur in the Bristol Byzantine style developed from the 1850s. [cite web | title=Bush House | work=Looking at Buildings | url=http://www.lookingatbuildings.org.uk/default.asp?document=3.C.1 | accessdate=2007-05-19]

As part of a two year development project that finished in September 2005, the old warehouse has been converted from two storeys to seven. Arnolfini occupies the lower three floors and basement and the upper floors are leased to help pay for the running costs. One tenant is the Bristol School of Art, Media and Design, part of the University of the West of England.

Arnolfini's Reading Room is on the Second Floor and provides reference material for all past exhibitions, many other events and wide range of books and catalogues as well as displays of posters and archive material.

Arnolfini was established in 1961, by Jeremy Rees (1937–2003), son of the artist Jean Rees and moved to its current site in 1975. It has established itself as leading centre for contemporary arts. Originally dedicated to exhibiting the work of artists from the West of England under the directorship of Barry Barker in the 1980s the gallery moved towards a more general spread of contemporary art. Barker supervised a successful refurbishment of the building by David Chipperfield. Before development work began, the Arnolfini was attracting over 400,000 visitors per year.

The Arnolfini is named after Jan van Eyck's masterpiece "The Arnolfini Portrait" (1434) depicting the merchant and arts patron Giovanni Arnolfini. The painting is in the National Gallery, London. There have been many theories discussed to explain this choice of name including a link between the painting and Bristol's merchant history. The most pausible explantion is that it was one of the founder's favourite paintings. However it is true that The Arnolfini Portrait is one of the earliest paintings to assert the prescene of the artist within it's depiction (an inscription in the middle of the work and a reflecion in a mirror on the back wall) and one of Arnolfini's consistent concerns is explore the role of artist as a witness and recorder of what is around them: contemporary society.

References

ee also

*Royal West of England Academy

External links

* [http://www.arnolfini.org.uk Official website]
* [http://www.lookingatbuildings.org.uk/default.asp?document=3.C.1 Bush House] , Pevsner Architectural Guides