More at Leeds Gallery

Leeds - A refurbished gallery 

Our weekend away in Leeds - gave us the chance to see the city, its' fine Civic Buildings and Shops as well as the Art Gallery which is fairly recently refurbished

A provincial (not meant pejoratively) gallery has to function across all sorts of work and epochs - in London we have galleries/museums covering fairly tightly specified periods - Like Tate Modern or The National Gallery.

The Gallery in Leeds covers a wide range of work from Impressionists like James Tissot to more modern artists - works included Francis Bacon and UK Pop Artist pioneer  Peter Blake.


It being Remembrance Sunday the The Drums of the Fore and Aft (by Edward Matthew Hale - which you can buy a print of) seemed particularly appropriate.

Sir Peter Blake's Girl in a Window

A picture with a story.

Intrigued to see work by Tony Cragg famed for his Stack  (I'd seen his work at Tate Modern earlier this year) real link to me was with the 'Strand' of Stuart Haygarth who had taken a long walk on England beaches (and heard him talk at London's Design Museum).

Postcard Flag by Tony Cragg at Leeds Art Gallery

I'm not sure if Cragg is covering the same topic but the colours and style immediately reminded me of the walk that Haygarth made collecting rubbish from the UK beaches.

I loved seeing Bruce McLean's I want my crown and Roger Palmer's 'The Remains of a Wooden Icebreaker lie submerged in Botany Bay (2007)

Work of Roger Palmer 

- I like to see Neon work 

Art in Ealing - Crossing the field and Bruce McLean at For Arts Sake

A work by Eric Monbel

Generally the walk across Ealing Green to Pitzhanger Gallery is a worthwhile one and in sync with the 100 years anniversary of the start of World War I is an exhibition that brings together the War and the apocryphal Christmas day football matches across the two  sides.


There's a very nice little film about a work commissioned in Ypres from 2003 by Mark Anstee and as well as some other works about war there's some lighter stuff about football from people like Marc Palmer.


Encounter Film from Mark Anstee on Vimeo.

For Arts Sake

For Arts Sake is a great little shop/gallery with a nice selection of affordable paintings and prints.

It's really good they way they feature contemporary artists for month or so coming to an end is the bright and mischievous works of Bruce McLean.

A great little place

McLean a one time student of Anthony Caro has worked across a range of artistic disciplines including performance and sculpture,  the prints in the gallery are (apparently) parodies of expressionist works - check him out if you can