Manchester Art Gallery: Correspondence

Numbers 1-55 comprise letters from artists (mainly) and patrons to Charles J. Pooley, Chairman of the Exhibition Committee, Manchester Art Gallery, respecting purchases of paintings and their hanging and exhibition. Included are letters from: 

• Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896), painter, 1886-1892 (10 items);
• John William North (1842-1924), illustrator and watercolour painter, 1894-1895 (8);
• William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), painter, 1888-1890 (5);
• Frank Dicksee (1853-1928), painter and illustrator, 1886-1888 (2);
• Sir Luke Fildes (1843-1927), painter, 1888-1890 (2);
• Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), painter, 1895 (1).

• Number 56: typescript article by C.J. Pooley respecting Stanhope Forbes' The Lighthouse;
• Number 57: an imperfect letter from C.J. Pooley;
• Number 58: letter from Samuel Cousins (1801-1877), engraver, to William Agnew (1877);
• Numbers 59-60: two letters from Sir John Everett Millais to Mrs Reiss (1877 and 1886).

The collection is available for consultation by any accredited reader.

Purchased by the John Rylands Library from the London bookseller Stanley Crowe for £7 11s in November 1958 (catalogue no. 60, item 309).

Description compiled by Jo Humpleby, project archivist.

Catalogued in the Hand-List of the Collection of English Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library, 1952-1970 (English MS 1226).

For other material in the JRUL relating to artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, see the Holman-Hunt Manuscripts (ref.: GB 133 HOL), and the Fairfax Murray Papers (ref.:  GB 133 Eng MSS 1278-1283).