Graves Art Gallery

Out for lunch today with an old academic friend my eye was continually drawn to this building from where we sat in a restaurant. I decided this had to be my blip today and I have settled for this pic.

Graves Art Gallery is an art gallery in Sheffield. The gallery is located above the Central Library in Sheffield city centre. It houses permanent displays from the city’s historic and contemporary collection of British and European art along with a programme of temporary exhibitions.

The Gallery was built with the support of business man John George Graves, who made his fortune out of one of the country’s earliest mail order businesses. Graves also gifted his art collection of almost 700 paintings, much of which can still be seen today. Other benefactors include John Newton Mappin, of Mappin and Webb.
The Central Library and Graves Gallery (on its 3rd floor) was opened in July 1934 dedicated to ‘the service of knowledge and art’. It was a state of the art facility fitted with ‘heating…by invisible panel system’, ‘artificial ventilation’, ‘synchronised electric clocks’ and five lifts.