A special “Art Treasures exhibition celebrating the 140th anniversary of Warrington’s art gallery has launched, bringing together some of the best items in its collection.
Warrington Art Treasures is the first in a series of displays celebrating important events in the history of Warrington Museum & Art Gallery, including the opening of the Large Art Gallery in October 1877.
When the museum – the oldest public museum in the North West – opened in Bold Street in 1857 it was also home to the Warrington School of Art; the gallery was added to showcase the work of the school’s former pupils who had gained national and even international reputations and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy.
The exhibition, which runs until 21 April, coincides with celebrations for the Royal Academy’s 250th anniversary which takes place next year, highlighting Warrington’s link with the Academy.
Janice Hayes, heritage manager for Culture Warrington, the charity which runs Warrington Museum & Art Gallery, explained the importance of marking such an occasion.
She said: “The 4th of October is a special date in our town’s history as it marks the official opening of the Large Art Gallery which houses fine art and contemporary collections.
“The museum and art gallery are an integral part of our town’s culture and heritage, and this anniversary is a great excuse to shout about our local history and the amazing items we have in our collection.
“In the mid-nineteenth century the new borough of Warrington was emerging as a leading economic and cultural centre in the North West.
“Warrington Museum played a key role in ensuring that the town’s artists were also part of the national arts scene; these Victorian aspirations are mirrored by the ambition of contemporary Warrington to become a UK City of Culture.”
Before the opening of the art gallery, the Bold Street Grade II listed building was also home to Warrington School of Art from 1857.
The Warrington Art Treasures exhibition features work by the school’s most famous pupil, Sir Luke Fildes, who progressed from illustrating for Charles Dickens and the 19th century newspaper The Graphic, to become a leading social-realist artist, confidant of painter/illustrator John Everett Millais and painter/sculptor Lord Leighton, before becoming a society portrait painter and respected Royal Academician.
Venetian genre paintings by his brother-in-law Henry Woods were a regular highlight of Royal Academy exhibitions and went on to feature in many public collections, and are now included in our very own Warrington Art Treasures exhibition.
Local sculptor John Warrington Wood was a prominent member of the Roman arts scene and was honoured with a specially commissioned work, a statue of Saint Michael overcoming Satan, which took centre stage when the new art gallery opened.
Also featured in the exhibition are works by local artists Edward Frederick Brewtnall and other Royal Academy exhibitors including Walter Langley and Frank Brangwyn.
5 Comments
” these Victorian aspirations are mirrored by the ambition of contemporary Warrington to become a UK City of Culture.”
How absolutely ridiculous! the Victorians who built our once lovely, town are more probably rolling in their graves at the destruction done today!
I can’t even get excited at the prospect of being able to view the town’s treasures, (or rather, what’s left of them) because of a niggling fear of an ‘ulterior motive’. Have to just hope that these gems haven’t been dragged up from the basements for a quick display before they are auctioned off, after being photographed and ‘digitalised’ for posterity of course.
have you anything solid to back up your wild claims or is it, as usual, just more conjecture and prejudice on your part against anything the Council, LiveWire or Culture Warrington does? I suspect the latter.
Same old whinge by the same old whingers, get a life. This should be a fabulous exhibition and a celebration of the towns past, where some folk clearly still belong, as exhibits.
Can you be specific on what you consider to be ‘wild claims’
Are you really so sad that you have to have a dig at everything positive the Council, Culture Warrington and Livewire try to do for this town? The Victorians didn’t build our wonderful town, they simply contributed as have all eras. Tell me, when the Victorians built things in the town centre, what did they do with the buildings which were already there?
I have serious doubts contemporary Warrington’s aspirations to become a city have anything to do or association with art, heritage or culture. Ever more development and political power, yes, and in abundance to the detriment of the town’s once enviable history, which successive administrations have sullied and squandered over the years to the point of it now being virtually non existent, as heritage building after heritage building is allowed or encouraged to decay or disappear, by one means or another.
This administration’s City of Culture submission, from what we can glean so far despite their reluctance to let the town’s citizens see what was submitted on their behalf and at their expense, had little to with heritage, art and culture as alluded to in this article.