KYQ4: The Burrell Collection

Entrance to the Burrell

The Burrell Collection Museum opened in Glasgow's Pollok Grounds in 1983. We lived nearby and it became a regular haunt for taking our young children out or for Aileen to visit during the week whilst the children were at playgroups and nursery. When combined with the walks in the wonderful woodlands that it overlooked through its expansive glass curtain and its open-plan cafe it was an ideal place to take our weekend visitors. Our children learnt to ride their bikes on the newly laid tracks that now provide access to the expensive car park. I ran through Pollok Grounds two or three times a week on my way home from work and then again at the weekend.

Sir William Burrell was the son of a Glasgow shipping owner who became a successful businessman when he took over his father's business. He was also an art aficionado and Glasgow councillor. His bequest of the collection made in 1944, which he insisted also belonged to Lady Constance, his wife, was to the city of Glasgow. It included the funding for a new building to house the collection in a location with no pollution and ideally within 4 miles of Killearn in Stirling. It took many years trying to satisfy these conditions before the Glasgow city fathers agreed on a site on the grounds of Pollok House, which was gifted by its late owner Sir John Maxwell-Stirling, founder member of the National Trust for Scotland. It was less than 4 miles from, not Killearn, but Glasgow City Centre.

The Burrell Collection of 9000 items includes Chinese art, 200 tapestries, French Impressionist paintings including Degas, Cezanne and Manet, paintings by the Glasgow Boys, Egyptian stone carvings and Greek vases and ceramics. It is an eclectic collection made possible by the immense wealth from selling his cargo ships during the Great War. Burrell employed agents throughout Europe to scour for artefacts that he was interested in. He was a shrewd collector and struck hard bargains in the 1930s and 1940s when a worldwide depression and wars had driven down competition for art collections. This included portals from Hornby Castle in Yorkshire that Burrell bought from Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper magnate, who had bought them for a castle he owned in Wales before his wealth had been depleted by the Great Depression.

The museum closed in 2016 for an extensive refit that cost £16m and took 6 years to complete, partly because of Covid. It was opened by King Charles, one of his earliest engagements after ascending the throne in 2022. Aileen and I had been looking forward to its reopening for a couple of years and it was one of her wishes after coming home from the hospital but sadly she was unable to travel. I took myself there today, a wet Monday when I thought it would be quiet. I was the first in at 10:00 a.m., and twenty minutes later as I wandered around an empty downstairs gallery, the attendant told me she had never known the museum with so few visitors. I had always loved the spaces and light in the building and today I was free to enjoy the collection without the noise and intrusion of other visitors or supervising three energetic and curious children. It gave me time to reflect on how one man could afford and collect so many artefacts from so many parts of the world. Seeing Rodin's statue also got me thinking about how philanthropy used to work for the benefit of local communities in the days before moonshots.

I spent the first hour absorbing the exhibits and then joined a guided tour of some of the highlights, most of which I had already admired without having to listen to the reciting of dates and well-rehearsed stories of the volunteer guide. Nevertheless, there were some interesting asides. It was 1 pm before I left for a quick walk around the North Wood in the rain. It had been a good way to spend the morning and revisit one of our favourite places in Glasgow, the Burrell was the Art Fund Museum of the Year, 2023.