Carleton’s Regional Carls Program

Carleton & St. Olaf London Area Alumni Club
American Art Exhibit
Saturday, May 10, 2008

Please mark your calendars for a special event on Saturday May 10, 2008. The Dulwich Picture Gallery is hosting a blockbuster exhibit of American Art from 1850 to 1950. Beginning with mid-nineteenth-century American landscapes, the exhibit includes late nineteenth-century and twentieth century paintings. The selections offer a comprehensive look at the major developments in American art in a period of one hundred years marked by the rise of modernity and by a dramatic change in the physical and social landscape. (See that attached press announcement from the Gallery for further details.)

Dulwich Picture Gallery is the oldest public art gallery (museum) in Britain, founded in 1811. The core of the permanent collection (16th to 18th century European painting) was put together by two art dealers in late 18th century London (one French; one Swiss) for the King of Poland. That country disappeared from the map in the late 18th century, after its third partition among neighboring states (the usual suspects). The two dealers (Bourgeois and Desenfans) didn't want to give the collection to the British Museum (allegedly because of the poor environmental conditions in central London) so they chose rural Dulwich, where Dulwich College took over the management of the collection and provided land for the building.

Dulwich itself is another of London’s little known gems. It is home to Dulwich College which was established in the 17th century by the Shakespearean actor and entrepreneur Edward Alleyn as a charity to educate 30 poor boys (it's now a prep school of some 1,400 with a campus just south of the Gallery). Alleyn had purchased the Manor of Dulwich in 1605 and on his death left enough money and land to endow Dulwich College, the James Allen School for Girls and the Alleyn's School. Much of the land south of North Dulwich Station and up to Sydenham Hill is still managed by the Governors of the Dulwich Estate (including the last surviving toll booth in London, where cars must pay £1 to use one of the roads across the Estate's land.)

In the 1880s, Dulwich College put together a couple of farms to create Dulwich Park as a gift to the local community. In May, the park has the best display of azaleas and rhododendrons in its 'American Garden'. These plants were considered distinctively 'American' in the 19th century and this part of the park still carries the name.

After viewing the exhibit there are several possibilities for the rest of the day, perhaps most notably a fine Edwardian pub in the center of Dulwich Village.

The admission fee is £9.00 per person for adults (£8.00 for seniors and £5.00 for students who must show proper ID.) The nearest train station is North Dulwich (about 15 minutes from London Bridge station), then a ten-minute walk through Dulwich Village to the Gallery.

The exhibit opens at 11:00am and May is likely to be a popular time for visitors so it is best if we try to assemble at the Gallery between 10:30 and 11:00. This should give us time to see the exhibit and then enjoy lunch together in the village.

For more information visit http://apps.carleton.ed/alumni/clubs/events/london_pdf/

(By the way, many thanks to my co-director - and Carleton classmate - Yani Sinanoglou for pointing out this interesting opportunity.) David Rowe C’67, CP’95, StOP’99, CP‘03