Funky Venues

Venue Review

Character: A grand, creative and unique gallery.

Funky Features: Labyrinthine 600 foot long painting, situated on London's South Bank, AV capability, for a small extra charge, they can change the Chronicles for your function.

Location and History

Feliks Topolski’s eyewitness record of the twentieth century, depicting the iconic historic figures and the significant political and social events he chronicled in a life spanning nine decades, from India and Gandhi to Wartime Europe and Mussolini, via 60’s America and Martin Luther King to Swinging London’s hippies.

Feliks Topolski was born in Warsaw on 14th August 1907 and studied at the Warsaw Academy of Art from 1927-1932.In 1935 he was commissioned to go to Britain to record King George V’s Silver Jubilee. He settled in London, where he remained at the outbreak of war in 1939. From 1940 he was an official war artist and joined the first Artic convoy to Russia in 1941.

During the Second World War Topolski sailed from Britain to Egypt, later visiting the Levant: Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. He travelled onto India, Burma and China and was in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp two weeks after its liberation in April 1945, and later attended, and drew, the Nuremberg Trials.

From 1953-1979 the artist published Topolski’s Chronicles, broadsheet drawings of his travels – documenting history as it happened. He travelled to America in 1968 and documented the Democratic Convention riots in Chicago, before going to San Francisco to meet members of the Black Panther Party.

In 1975 Topolski began work on the painted panorama he called Memoir of the Century, now renamed Topolski Century.. He died in London on 24th August 1989.

Interior and Spaces for Hire

With its unique subject matter, the scale, diversity and beauty of the paintings will enhance any event.

The Chronicle Arch: Suitable for smaller functions or as a venue for talks and lectures, with AV capability, the Chronicle Arch is decorated in some of Topolski’s chronicles, which change weekly. For a small extra charge, they can change the Chronicles for your function.

The Century Arches: The labyrinthine 600 foot long painting snakes through these two arches, suitable for a drinks or canapé reception for up to 200 people.