'The Foundation Collection of the Johannesburg Art Gallery and the re-launch of The Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Johannesburg 1910'

The magnificent foundation collection assembled by Sir Hugh Lane for the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) has been reassembled in its original home for the first time in many decades, to huge anticipation.  The exhibition will be held from 14 September 2014 until February 2015.  The most celebrated art collection of the 20th century in South Africa was established in 1910 by Sir Hugh Lane, as advisor to Lady Phillips, the founder of JAG and wife of the mining-magnate, Sir Lionel Phillips. ? 

The JAG foundation collection is the largest art collection created by Sir Hugh Percy Lane (born 6 November 1875, Cork, Ireland – died 7 May 1915, at sea off the Cork coast), a renowned art collector, dealer and connoisseur of Old Master paintings. . JAG is the second modern art collection put together by Lane, after he had collected works for the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, now known as the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, which opened in 1908. Thereafter Lane fashioned his third collection, the Michaelis Collection in Cape Town in 1914, consisting of 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings. ? 

Lane was one of the most important curators of his time because he was the first to curate displays showing the development of modern British art and the earliest to collect French Impressionist paintings for British public collections.  He was knighted for his services to Irish art in 1909 and is renowned for his contested Lane Bequest of 39 French Impressionist paintings to the National Gallery in London. ? 

Lane first met Lady Phillips in 1909, after which she attempted to find suitable accommodation for the planned foundation collection.  Lane was responsible for curating and mounting the foundation collection’s first exhibition at JAG, and also for producing its first accompanying catalogue, dated 1910.  Sadly he drowned with others on board the RMS Lusitania, off the Cork coast, after the Germans torpedoed it.   ? 

JAG’s foundation collection includes primarily works in different media by famous British and French 19th century artists, as well as by some lesser-known European artists.  Famous names in the collection include Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Dame Laura Knight, Sir John Everett Millais, Henry Moore, Sir David Wilkie, Augustus John, and Alfred Sisley, amongst many others.     ? 

The Hugh Lane Collection exhibition will recreate the foundation collection’s original splendour and will act as inspiration to all those who admire art.  It will be exhibited at JAG accompanied by a facsimile copy of the original 1910 illustrated catalogue, with Lane’s Prefatory Notice.

14 September - 28 February