Identity:

Sir Coutts Lindsay of Balcarres, 2nd Baronet, artist, collector and art entrepreneur. In 1864 he married Caroline Blanche Fitzroy, daughter of Rt Hon H. Fitzroy, MP; they separated in 1882.

Life:

Together with his wife Blanche Fitzroy, Coutts Lindsay founded the Grosvenor Gallery, which became a celebrated alternative exhibition venue to the Royal Academy and focus of the Aesthetic Movement between 1877 and 1890. It was at the inaugural exhibition on 1 May 1877 that JW exhibited Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (YMSM 170), which John Ruskin attacked in Fors Clavigera, prompting JW to sue for libel. JW always tried to maintain a good relationship with Lindsay, who was extremely important to his career during this period, providing a sympathetic venue for his works to be displayed.

However, after Lindsay's separation from his wife, the Grosvenor Gallery declined and it closed in 1890.

Lindsay's studio was at 4-5 Cromwell Place (built 1859), and was also used by Archibald Stuart-Wortley. In about 1892 Sir J. D. Linton ran a school there.

Bibliography:

Walkley, Giles, Artists' houses in London 1764-1914, Aldershot, 1994; Casteras, Susan P., Colleen Denney, The Grosvenor Gallery a Palace of Art in Victorian England, New Haven, 1996 The Annual Register 1913, p. 95; Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, on-line edition (accessed 2004).