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 

James Tissot at Tate Britain and Leeds City Exhibitions

So this w/e first visit to Leeds and it's a nice city (more about it in the next few days).

Not only in Leeds

What was slightly surprising was that last Friday I visited Impressionists in London exhibition at Tate Britain - it's on until 7th May so a good chance I'll visit again - perhaps with a friend.

Tissot in London

The exhibition is around exiles who worked and lived in London between 1870 and 1904 when conflict in Europe between France and Prussia led to instability and the Paris Commune artists who moved to London included Pissaro (who stayed in Kew)


The artist who's work  I was really impressed with  was that of James Tissot, I'd not heard of him before  and strangely I saw another example of his work at the recently refurbished  Leeds City Art Gallery - I was able to take a photo of it (below) but the photography was not possible at Tate exhibition.

Tissot was not strictly speaking an impressionist like Monet  but was working in a similar manner.

The Bridesmaid (1883) by James Tissot

Tissot brought a French sensibility to his composition - often implying relationships that were controversial for British Art fans (two women and a man were regularly shown with a sense of tension between the characters) .

Two of the the works that stood out for me at Tate Britain by Tissot were The Ball on Shipboard (1876) and 'On the Thames'