Why did the Mappin Art Gallery dissappear?

[Sheff2006]

Yes I do like the Graves but is only five galleries or so and I expect when the new coffee bar opens in January it will be at the expense of one of the galleries. It would be okay for a large but Sheffield is supposed to be a City. We need something for the residents as well as the locals. And now the national museum of popular music has been reborn in the O2. Perhaps we are trying to give ourselves a reputation of being uncultured northern oiks.

 

From what Ive read, I think the coffee bar is just being revamped and work is currently in progress on refurbishing one of the galleries (no. 5 I think?).

I would like a bigger venue for works of art although I tend to think of Sheffield as a smaller city. Maybe Sheffield just isnt much of an art-likers place these days though?

[MJ01]

I heard someone painted over it

[tonkatoy]

I had not realised anything had happened to the Mappin. It is very worrying if it has.

 

An interesting article reproduced......

 

Victorian entrepreneurs made and lost fortunes in the brewing industry, but few could have made more impact on their home town than John Newton Mappin.

 

Mappin was born into the cutlery trade. His father was a knife maker and engraver, but John sought his fortune in the brewing industry. He set up his brewery in Rotherham in the early years of Victoria’s reign, and by the time of his death in 1884 he had amassed a sizeable fortune. But this is not the end of the tale by any means. It was events that happened after his death that made him a remarkable man. Mappin had a great passion for collecting works of art. By the time of his death his collection was valued at around £100, 000: about £15 million in today’s money, and perhaps 10 times that at today’s prices. In his will the entire collection was bequeathed to the population of Sheffield along with a further £15000 to build a suitable art gallery in which to hang them. So it was that in 1887 the Mappin Art Gallery was opened to the people of Sheffield. But things did not stop there. His nephew Sir Fredrick Thorpe Mappin who had overseen the construction of the Mappin Gallery, carried on the families philanthropic ideals, and is widely regarded as the father of Sheffield University as a result.

 

It would seem that both the Gallery and art within were gifted to the city by another of its great benefactors. I hope that this is not another of those cases like Graves Park, where an ungrateful council seek to ignore the requsts of such benefactors and use the gifts for their own ends.

[Sheff2006]

I heard someone painted over it

 

Painted what over what?

[Dizzyblonde]

I think a lot of people have not realised the Mappin has gone. Many people like to know an art gallery is there but dont visit every day and besides its been called the Western Park redevelopment. Not the Mappin Art Gallery theft.