Art · Manchester, England
The Whitworth
The University of Manchester’s art gallery in Whitworth Park.
The Whitworth is the University of Manchester's art gallery, set in Whitworth Park on Oxford Road. It was founded in 1889 as the Whitworth Institute with money left by the engineer Sir Joseph Whitworth, and its red-brick main building was completed in 1908; the gallery became part of the university in 1958.
A £15 million redevelopment reopened the gallery in 2015, doubling its exhibition space with glass-walled wings that reach into the park; it won Art Fund Museum of the Year that year. Its collections are especially strong in textiles, wallpapers, prints and works on paper, alongside modern and contemporary art, and entry is free.
Highlights
- Art Fund Museum of the Year 2015
- Major textile and wallpaper collections
- Glass wings opening onto Whitworth Park
- Free entry
