July 1859: The Glasgow Art Union – Letter from “W.”, To The Editor of ‘The Morning Journal’

The letter is on page two of The Morning Journal (Glasgow Morning Journal, in The

British Newspaper Archive), on Tuesday the 5th of July, 1859.

 

It reads:

 

“THE GLASGOW ART UNION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING JOURNAL.

Sir,—lt is a common belief amongst uninformed admirers of

the Glasgow Art Union that their annual subscription entitles

them not only to a very large engraving, the expectation of a

painting, but also to the respect of the public, on account of the

benefit they are the means of conferring upon local art in particular.

The general public will be willing to allow that the subscribers may

be justified in receiving a large engraving, but they will be unwilling

to yield the respect demanded if they possess the knowledge which it

is a matter of courtesy to give them the credit of. It is assuredly no

fault of the Art Union that its subscribers imagine they are patronising

local art. It can advance, if it possesses the courage, many proofs of the

studied neglect which has characterised its dealings with local art, and it

can this year satisfy its supporters that in the coming exhibition the works

of Glasgow artists will be ‘conspicuous by their absence.’ It was but natural

that the subscribers should expect that a local institution for the diffusion

of a ‘taste in the community for fine arts’ would assist local art. It may seem

to an enterprising and aesthetic secretary that the purchasing of pictures is

better in his hands than under the control of men unaccustomed to the trying

air of artists’ studios. It may satisfy his admiration of English art to witness an

almost total exclusion of Scotch artists, who have achieved a reputation even

beyond the border. He may accomplish all this with considerable dexterity and

apparent success, but he will do so at the risk of exposing the society he represents

to the hopeless bankruptcy which has already befallen an unsuccessful rival. W.”

 

 

 

The British Newspaper Archive.

 

 

 

George Fairfull-Smith, October 2025.