Robert Crozier Collection
Date range: 1783-1910
Medium: Archive
This small collection of letters relates to the Manchester artist Robert Crozier (1815-1891).
Crozier first exhibited at the Royal Manchester Institution in 1841, and at the Royal Academy in 1854, but it was the success of an exhibition at Peel Park, Salford, in 1857 that encouraged Crozier and other local artists to set up the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts in 1859.
Shortly after its foundation Crozier was appointed Literary Secretary of the Academy, a position that he held until he was elected Treasurer in 1868, and from 1878 until a month before his death he was President of the Academy.
The collection comprises letters addressed to or collected by Crozier; it appears that Crozier was a collector of autographs as many letters from eminent persons are otherwise unconnected with him. They include autograph letters of:
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti;
- Sir Edwin Landseer;
- William Cowper;
- Edward Jenner;
- Florence Nightingale;
- George Frederic Watts;
- Sir Charles Lock Eastlake;
- Sir Coutts Lindsay;
- Frederic J. Shields.
Several letters relate to the fund set up to support the widow and children of William Bradley (1801-1857), the Manchester portrait painter, whose subscribers included Sir Francis Grant, William Ewart Gladstone and Sir Charles Lock Eastlake.
The collection is relevant for studies of the social and cultural history of Manchester in the 19th century, and for wider studies of art history, collecting and connoisseurship.
Further information:
Catalogue available online via ELGAR.
Location:
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