Held from May to October of 1851, “The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations” was opened by Queen Victoria in the structure built to house it, the Crystal Palace, in Hyde Park, London. Image: Interior view of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London during the Great Exhibition of 1851. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was an event in the history of: exhibitions; world’s fairs; consumerism; imperialism; architecture; collections; things; glass and material culture in general; visual culture; attention and inattention; distraction. Its ostensible purposes, as stated by the organizing commission and various promoters, most notably Prince Albert, were chiefly to celebrate the industry and ingeniousness of various world cultures, primarily the British, and to inform and educate the public about the achievement, workmanship, science and industry that produced the numerous and multifarious objects and technologies on display. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the Crystal Palace (pictured above) was a structure of iron and glass conceptually derived from greenhouses and railway stations, but also resembling the shopping arcades of Paris and London. The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations became a model for World’s Fairs, by which invited nations showcased the best in manufacturing, design, and art, well into the twentieth century.

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Audrey Jaffe, "On the Great Exhibition"

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Carol Senf, “‘The Fiddler of the Reels’: Hardy’s Reflection on the Past”

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by David Rettenmaier

On 12 July 1851, Queen Victoria visited the Exhibition Model Dwellings, which were built just off the grounds of the Great Exhibition in 1851. These model dwellings, designed by the architect Henry Roberts, contributed to growing efforts to place the mid-century crisis in housing of the poor at the forefront of public attention. Image: A Room in Tyndall's Buildings (from The Labourers’ Friend(April 1856): 57. This image is in the public domain in the United States as its copyright has expired.

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Barbara Leckie, “Prince Albert’s Exhibition Model Dwellings”

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Barbara Leckie, “‘The Bitter Cry of Outcast London’ (1883): Print Exposé and Print Reprise”

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On 29 April 1854, the first Annual Exhibition of French Paintings opened at 121 Pall Mall. Image: G. C. Leighton after R. Sandeman, Pall Mall No. 120 and 121, n.d. Engraving. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

The exhibition was organized by the art dealer Ernest Gambart and held in the space that would soon become known as the French Gallery. The exhibition marked the first instance of a recognizably modern commercial art gallery, a development that profoundly changed the physical, economic and social relationships between artists, dealers, art objects and viewers.

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Pamela Fletcher, “On the Rise of the Commercial Art Gallery in London”

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by David Rettenmaier

Opening of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham on 10 June 1854. Image: The Crystal Palace on fire (30 November 1936; author unknown). This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

The resurrection of the Crystal Palace of 1851 in its new setting at Sydenham, with an expanded architectural complex and enhanced functional brief, embodies the Victorian emphasis upon visuality as a means of acquiring and conveying knowledge. In addition, the new Crystal Palace was shaped by prevailing concepts of rational recreation and beneficial commerce that insisted that private and public interests could be simultaneously satisfied and lead to a stronger nation and even Empire.

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Anne Helmreich, "On the Opening of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 10 June 1854"

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Art Treasures of the United Kingdom Exhibition in Manchester, the largest fine-arts exhibition ever held in Britain, occurred from 5 May to 17 October 1857. Image: Illustration for John Cassell’s Art Treasures Exhibition: Engravings of the Principal Masterpieces (W. Kent, 1858), 1. Toronto Reference Library. Print. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

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Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, “The Moxon Tennyson as Textual Event: 1857, Wood Engraving, and Visual Culture”

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From 5 May to 17 Oct 1857, the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition occurred. This was an art exhibition in temporary buildings at Old Trafford, organized by leading Manchester figures and supported by Prince Albert. The exhibition was notable for focusing purely on fine art, for using information about works owned privately contained in Gustav Waagen’s Art Treasures of England (1843)—the organizing committee often solicited specific works from donors—and for hanging both Old and Modern Masters chronologically. It was attended by over 1.3 million visitors over 5 months and helped spur interest in making art accessible to a wider public.

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Amy Woodson-Boulton, “The City Art Museum Movement and the Social Role of Art”

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Pre-Raphaelite Art Exhibit, Russell Square, London, from 25 May to 25 June 1857. This was the first exhibition devoted solely to the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. Image: Portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: albumen print. This photograph, from 7 October 1863, was reproduced as the frontispiece of: Rossetti, William Michael, Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer. London: Cassell and Company, 1898. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

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From May 1877 to July 1887, Walter Crane contributed to the Summer Exhibitions at the Grosvenor Gallery, exhibiting a number of works drawn from mythological subjects. Image: Detail from Walter Crane, Beauty and the Beast (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1875), centerfold illustration showing Beauty and the Beast, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

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Julie Codell, "“On the Grosvener Gallery, 1877-90″

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Whistler exhibits eight oil paintings, including Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, at the inaugural exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery, established by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife as a venue for art of the Aesthetic and Pre-Raphaelite schools. Image: Self-Portrait of James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Gray: Portrait of the Painter, c. 1872 (Detroit, Michigan, Detroit Institute of Arts). This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

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Julie Codell, “On the Grosvener Gallery, 1877-90″

Nicholas Frankel, “On the Whistler-Ruskin Trial, 1878″

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The Colonial and Indian Exhibition opened in South Kensington on 4 May 4 1886, lasted over six months, and accommodated 5.5 million visitors. Image: “Woodcarvers (Courtyard of Indian Palace).” “Colonial Indian Exhibition: The Indian Empire.” Illustrated London News 17 July 1886: 84. Courtesy of the Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine.

Featuring extravagant displays from British colonial holdings, the exhibit was organized by the Prince of Wales as an “imperial object lesson” in England’s power and grandeur.

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Aviva Briefel, "On the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition"

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On 1 Oct 1888, the First Arts and Crafts exhibition opened. The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society provided a venue for the public display of decorative arts in central London. Image: Photograph of Walter Crane, first president of the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society. Detail of photo by Frederick Hollyer, from the album Portraits of Many Persons of Note, 1886. This image is in the public domain in the United States as its copyright has expired.

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Imogen Hart, “On the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society”

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On 15 November 15 1888, Emery Walker gives lecture, “Letterpress Printing,” at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition at the New Gallery, Regent Street. The lecture was attended by William Morris and Oscar Wilde; the idea of the Kelmscott Press is born. Image: Kelmscott Press logotype. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

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On 24 February 1893, Grafton Galleries were opened on Grafton Street, London. The gallery held temporary exhibitions of British and international fine and decorative art.

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Meaghan Clarke, “1894: The Year of the New Woman Art Critic”

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From 1 May 1893 to 30 October 1893, the Columbian Exhibition was held in Chicago. The exhibition had a Women’s Pavilion and the World’s Congress of Representative Women was held there on 15 May 1893.

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Meaghan Clarke, “1894: The Year of the New Woman Art Critic”

Carol Senf, “‘The Fiddler of the Reels’: Hardy’s Reflection on the Past”

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Opening of the Festival of Empire on 12 May 1911. Image: Festival of Empire at the Crystal Palace in South London, taken from the replica Canadian parliament building (1911; author unknown). This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

Located at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, the Festival of Empire, originally scheduled for 1910 but postponed due to the death of Edward VII, was a physical manifestation of imperial rhetoric. British colonies and dominions were represented by three-quarter size replicas of their Parliamentary buildings housing exhibits of products of those countries as well as scenes recreating the physical environment of select locales, such as a Maori village. The Festival of London, part of the Festival of Empire, featured historical pageants and reinforced London’s role as the chief locus of empire

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Anne Helmreich, "On the Opening of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 10 June 1854"

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On 23 April 1924, the British Empire Exhibition opened. The exhibition was located in Wembley, a suburb north of London and ran from 23 April to 1 November 1924. It reopened for a second season between 9 May and 31 October 1925. Image: “Wembley By Night” in Donald Maxwell, Wembley in Colour (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1924), 101. Collection of the author.

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Anne Clendinning, “On The British Empire Exhibition, 1924-25″

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by David Rettenmaier