A Year at...
York Art Gallery
York Art Gallery has gone from strength to strength since its refurbishment funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. We are now able to present a programme of exhibitions to visitors, who continue to visit in increasing numbers. The Studio has been a great success as it offers dedicated space for educational activities for schools and the local community.
The exhibition Tom Bendhem: Collector began the year at York Art Gallery and included works by well-known contemporary artists. The exhibition was organised by the Contemporary Art Society .A special event in the gallery brought together collectors from both London and Yorkshire and launched Contemporary Art North, which is now active in the region encouraging collectors to acquire new work and build relationships with artists and public galleries.
William Etty’s watercolour box which went on show at York Art Gallery
This was followed by the very popular summer exhibition Icons and Idols, from the National Portrait Gallery. This was the only showing of the exhibition outside London and featured portraits of famous faces including Dame Judi Dench, Sir Richard Branson and the late Queen Mother.
The Art of Conversation coincided with a conference on 18th century art at the University of York. It showcased paintings by major artists from the period, complemented by pieces from our costume and decorative arts collections. The paintings were a combination of our own and loaned works from other regional and national galleries.
Relationships: Contemporary Sculpture focussed on 20th century works from our collection alongside loans from the collection of the Arts Council England by contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst and Rebecca Warren.
The Little Gallery offers us an intimate space that is perfect to show small displays, usually drawn from the collection, that reflect areas of research by the curatorial team.
The year began with William Etty: Drawing from Life which combined drawings by the York artist with some of his most famous oil paintings. Some of the sketches had never been exhibited before.
It was followed by Art In Life, a display which showed beautifully-coloured 19th century Japanese “ukiyo-e” prints, alongside Japanese 20th Century studio ceramics.
Richard Fozard: Printmaker displayed for the first time a selection of prints showing rural scenes by this remarkable Yorkshire printmaker, alongside metal plates and tools of his trade.
Icons and Idols, a National Portrait Gallery exhibition