Whitechapel Gallery is a ground-breaking arts institution located in the heart of London’s East-End. Locally embedded and globally connected, the Gallery was founded in 1901 to enrich the cultural offer for the people of East London. Today, as well as hosting exhibitions and events, Whitechapel Gallery provides access to its Historical Documents Collection and Online Library.

The Historical Documents Collection contains various documents, most of which were published directly by the Gallery and represent its activity, for example the Gallery’s Catalogues and Annual Reports. A particularly lovely example is the 1951 catalogue for the Festival of Britain exhibition, “Black Eyes and Lemonade“, which showcased British “Popular Art” drawn from commerce and industry, alongside more “Traditional Art”.

There is also much material that, while more loosely connected to the Gallery, is of wider historical interest. This includes correspondence, catalogues for other galleries, materials relating to regulation and various societies, and organisations looking to utilise the Gallery space. One example is a series of letters between the Gallery and the London Labour Party who, in the summer of 1921, were struggling to secure funding to support an art exhibition.

In addition to the above, the Gallery’s Online Library consists of various texts on the history of the Whitechapel Gallery, published and unpublished, which are available to view online for free and are regularly updated. By making this rich and fascinating resource available online, Whitechapel Gallery hopes to inspire future research into the history of the Gallery and it’s various activities from the past up to today.