Unsurprisingly, a quantity of attempts had been made both to fully remodel the National Gallery , or to move it to extra capacious premises in Kensington, where the air was also cleaner. In 1867 Barry’s son Edward Middleton Barry proposed to exchange the Wilkins building with a large classical constructing with four domes. The scheme was a failure and modern critics denounced the outside as “a powerful plagiarism upon St Paul’s Cathedral”. In February 2014, the gallery purchased Men of the Docks by the American artist George Bellows for $25.5 million (£15.6 million). It was the primary main American portray …