Past Exhibitions

Mark Gertler: Sir Michael Sadler Mark Gertler (1891/2-1939), Portrait of Sir Michael Ernest Sadler KCSI, 1915, oil on canvas, Gift of Dr. T.E. Harvey, 1953 © University of Leeds Art Collection/Photo: Norman Taylor, 201

The Sadler Gift

7 September - 17 December 2011

Celebrating 100 years since Michael Sadler's Vice Chancellorship and highlighting his pivotal role in the development of the University Art Collection, this exhibition explored his legacy by showing the key moments in British art represented in the collection.

Opening Night photos

M.A. Art Gallery and Museum Studies student displays:

- 'Connecting Lives: Intimate Artworks of Bloomsbury'
- 'Fancy a Brew? 18th Century Drinking Cultures'
Education Room display
17 October - 10 December 2011

Students completing their M.A. Art Gallery and Museum Studies at Leeds used works from the University Art Collection to develop new displays on two themes. The first group selected works by the Bloomsbury set of artists, exploring the intertwined lives of Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry. This display, entitled 'Connecting Lives: Intimate Artworks of Bloomsbury', used works on paper and books from the Brotherton Library to illustrate these connections.

The other display, 'Fancy a Brew? 18th Century Drinking Cultures', explored the history and social importance of both beer and tea drinking in the 18th century, through the ceramic objects used to contain these. The group used images by Hogarth depicting Gin Lane and Beer Street to illustrate their story.

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Transatlantic Abolition: Nineteenth-Century Yorkshire

Special display
1 - 29 October 2011

This special display in the main gallery was part of a project undertaken by Yosra Awad and directed by Professor Bridget Bennett of the University of Leeds' School of English. The project investigated the impact that the United States had on Leeds in the middle of the nineteenth century and how political and religious contestations over slavery and abolition were reflected in the public culture of the city.

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School's Out! Leeds and the 1911 Schools Strike

Education Room display
22 August - Saturday 1 October 2011

In 1911, schoolchildren across Britain went on strike. 100 years later, the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery remembered the centenary of these extraordinary events in Leeds and across the nation, with a display guest curated by Sarah Prescott.

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L'Hiver, by Carlos Nadal, 1973, oil on canvas, University of Leeds Art Collection, Gift of John Duncalfe, 2009, In Memory of my dear friends Audrey and Stanley Burton

Carlos Nadal: Paintings in Yorkshire Collections

7 June - 20 August 2011

Paintings in Yorkshire collections by the Expressionist Catalan painter Carlos Nadal (1917-1998), sometimes referred to as "the last of the Fauves".

The Gallery at the University of Leeds brings together over 40 paintings and drawings in Yorkshire collections for this seminal exhibition. A range of his favourite subjects are selected, from rolling green landscapes, lively beach scenes, bold still life and figure studies, or ornate civic buildings - all in executed in his characteristically vibrant colours, wild brushstrokes and naïve style.

Between 20 June and 13 August 2011, the exhibition was complemented by a special display about Carlos Nadal's life and art, showcasing works on paper, photographs, and archival documents in the Education Room.

 

Opening Night photos

 

Grand Central Railway Tennants Auctioneers

 

 

 

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Inspired Ceramics from Osmondthorpe Resource Centre

Education Room diplay
Monday 23 May - Friday 24 June 2011

 

Ceramic artworks made by customers from a local centre for people with disabilities sat alongside some of Yorkshire's most historic ceramic art. The exhibiting local artists, all of whom have an acquired brain injury, participated in a ceramics class run by tutor and artist Sally Bradley at Leeds City Council's Osmondthorpe Resource Centre. Members of the class visited the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at the University of Leeds to gain inspiration for their creations, which were on display in the Education Room until 24th June 2011.

The exhibition was borne out of a unique collaboration between medical research, art practice and community work. The ceramic art project was initiated by a BSc Primary Care student, Elinor Harris, from the University of Leeds. Her research explored the experiences that these artists have of planning, creating and exhibiting their artwork. To enable this, she collaborated with both the Osmondthorpe Resource Centre and the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery for this project.

Osmondthorpe Resource Centre provides a range of services for people with a physical and/or sensory impairment, specialising in acquired brain injuries. These services include, amongst other things, life coaching, access to qualifications, confidence building, relaxation techniques, art workshops, counselling, social inclusion and emotional and peer support. The centre is dedicated to offering such an invaluable support network for its customers.

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Robida A. Robida, Le Vingtième Siècle,
Paris: Decaux, 1883.
© Brotherton Collection University of Leeds

Visions of the Future: The Art of Science Fiction

Education Room display
Monday 4 April - Saturday 11 June 2011

 

"... in many ways science fiction was the true literature of the twentieth century, with a vast influence on film, television, advertising and consumer design. Science fiction is now the only place where the future survives..."
J. G. Ballard, Miracles of Life, 2008.

 

'Visions of the Future: The Art of Science Fiction', presented a selection from the University of Leeds Special Collections illustrating the history and development of science fiction artwork, from its formative years to contemporary film posters.

The display provided an insight into the development and artistic trends of the genre, and little-known facts, such as the special role Leeds played in the early history of science fiction in England.

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Thousand Year, by Bruce Ingram, 2008, mixed media © The Artist

Virtually Real

1 March - 21 May 2011

Contemporary artists explored the illusion of space, using different methodologies and media to confound or exemplify realism.

In a visual culture where digital photography and CGI create disposable and instantly digestible spaces, this exhibition brought together work that questions and subverts the representation of space in art and everyday life.

Virtually Real, a group exhibition of nine important contemporary artists, ventured beyond the traditional spatial realism of paintings and the flattened panes and spaces of modernism, by focussing on the illusion of space, a central aesthetic concern throughout the canon of art history, with new methods and approaches.

The artists participating were Petros Chrisostomou, Bruce Ingram, Grant Miller, James Moore, Suzanne Moxhay, Jamie Tiller, Julia Willms, Simon Woolham and Dawn Woolley.Guest curated by 'Another Product.'

 

The exhibition's virtual comment board:

answergarden

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2010

How La Beale Isoud Nursed Sir Tristram, from Le Morte d'Arthur, by Aubrey Beardsley, 1894, University of Leeds Special Collections, The Fay and Geoffrey Elliott Collection

 

Fancy and Imagination: Beardsley and the Book Illustrators

16 November 2010 - 12 February 2011

Treasures of book illustration from the University of Leeds collections and private collections. The exhibition celebrates the richness and variety of this medium in the vibrant period between 1890 and the 1920s, including major illustrators such as Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Rackham, Harry Clarke, Edmund Dulac, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Kay Nielsen and Jessie M. King.

 

The Gallery exhibition was complemented by a display titled 'Printers, Presses and Processes: The Book as a Whole 1890-1900' in the Special Collections entrance foyer concentrating on Beardsley's contemporaries, particularly William Morris and his Kelmscott Press. This special display showcased the work of book designers, illustrators, and printers such as Morris and Charles Ricketts, the private presses they founded, and the way in which different processes affected book production and illustration in that period. The books and periodicals in this display all come from Special Collections, primarily from the Fay and Geoffrey Elliott Collection.

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Evi Swims, by Judith Tucker, 2007-8, charcoal, 76 x 61 cm © The Artist

 

All Over the Place: Drawing Place, Drawing Space

22 June 2010 - 23 October 2010

Recent drawings by 17 artists in the group LAND2 and the Drawing Research Group (Lincoln) explore the relationship between the act of drawing and the experience of place. LAND2 is a national, creative practice-led research network of artists, lecturers and students with an interest in contemporary landscape and place-oriented art practice.

Further information about the artists:

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Representations of the Romany

Eduation Room display
14 June - 8 October 2010

Romany image In celebration of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Heritage Month (June), the Education Room showcased Romany treasures and artworks from the University's Designated Collection in the Education Room. The Romany Collection at the University is considered to be one of the most important research collections in the UK for the study of Gypsies and Travellers.

Image: Detail from Die Rotwelsch Grammatic, Augsbert, 1520, Leeds University Library Special Collections

 

 

 

 

 

Alan Davie

16 March - 5 June 2010

A snapshot of the career of Alan Davie, Scottish master of abstract art, and a former Gregory Fellow in Painting at the University of Leeds (1957-59). 2010 marked Davie's 90th birthday, and to celebrate, the Gallery revisited Davie's career from his Gregory Fellowship to 2010. Davie's expressive paintings, full of colour and energy, have changed over time, but his philosophy of painting - an automatic and vital process - has not. The exhibition featureed selected works from his career from the 1950s to now, with a special focus on some recent work and his technique.