On September 7, 1931, the Granada Cinema was inaugurated in the heart of Wandsworth. Performing that night were the trumpeters of The Life Guards and Alex Taylor on his Wurlitzer organ. The feature film was Monte Carlo and the short was Two Crowded Hours directed by Michael Powell. Until 1934, the film calendar of this Art Deco jewel in the heart of London was supplemented with theatre and musical performances and even a small circus with live elephants. There was also a cafe at the entrance which overlooked the foyer and the Granada even boasted of an “electric” kitchen, a 250-spot parking lot and a carriage space for mothers and their children. The building which houses what is, today, still considered the most spectacular cinema in all of Great Britain, is the result of a design by the great cinema and theatre architect Cecil A. Massey for Sidney Bernstein. The interior, meanwhile, was a result of the creativity of the Russian theatre designer Theodore Komisarjevsky. From Jerry Lee Lewis to Frank Sinatra, from the Rolling Stones to the Beatles, numerous illustrious performers were hosted on the stage of the Granada. The last performance, on April 28, 1968, were the Bee Gees. Then, in the ‘60s, its decline began. It was closed definitively on November 10, 1973. It went unused for almost three years until October 14, 1976, when it reopened as Granada Bingo Club, Tooting.
An exhibition celebrates Edwin Austin Abbey, a 19th-century American artist, showcasing his study for the monumental work The Hours created for the Pennsylvania State Capitol.
Over 300 objects from the Royal Collection, including works by the most renowned contemporary artists of the period, including Carl Fabergé, Frederic Leighton, Edward Burne-Jones, Laurits Tuxen, John Singer Sargent and William Morris, tell the story of the Edwardian era.
An exhibition to tell the story of Pictorialism: the first international movement of artistic photography, which developed throughout the world from 1880 to 1960.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye is one of the world's leading painters to emerge in the late 20th century, her lived experience and spiritual engagement with her homeland translated into vibrant batiks and later monumental canvas paintings.
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