Leeds Art Gallery

This sculpture collection display explores the relationships between sculpture and narrative; from the iconographies of portrait and figure sculpture, through sculptures which have words or text embedded, to constructions, assemblages and installations which suggest movement, process or a sequence of events.

A number of recent acquisitions are presented for the first time alongside important works of art that form the core of our ever-expanding sculpture collection. At the centre of the display is ‘Rebekkah’ (2011) by Simon Fujiwara, which was presented to Leeds Museums and Galleries by the Contemporary Art Society in 2013. Telling the story of a young British girl’s journey to China, ‘Rebekkah’ is surrounded by life-sized figurative sculpture dating from the early nineteenth century to the present day, including works by Antonio Canova and Antony Gormley.

Website

http://www.leeds.gov.uk/museumsandgalleries/Pages/leedsartgallery/Narrating-Objects.aspx

The display which draws together works of French art from the Gallery’s permanent collection looks at the allure and excitement of new art from France that impacted on English artists, but also on Yorkshire-based collectors emerging from the enclosed world of late Victorian painting.

From early acquisitions at the end of the 19th century to the taste for Barbizon and the spirit of the outdoors, to paintings of modern life and Gallery director (1934 – 45) Phillip Hendy’s pioneering efforts to bring works by the post-Impressionists Derain, Vuillard and Bonnard into the Leeds collection. The display will also include works by Doré, Courbet, Lucien Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Henri Fantin-Latour and others.

Sculpture by Rodin and an acquisition new to Leeds and previously unseen - a bronze by Edgar Degas, ‘Portrait de femme, tête appuyée sur la main gauche (Portrait of a Woman: Head Resting on One Hand)’ given (2013) in lieu of tax from the estate of the notable British painter Lucien Freud, also feature in this display which draws together works of French art entirely from the Gallery’s permanent collection. Widely known for its collection of 20th century British art this display will bring to the fore a lesser known though nevertheless significant aspect of the Galleries holdings.

Website

http://www.leeds.gov.uk/museumsandgalleries/Pages/leedsartgallery/Cross-Currents.aspx

Drawn from the collections of The Henry Moore Foundation and Leeds Museums and Galleries, Figure and Architecture: Henry Moore in the 1950s relates to three key architectural commissions undertaken by Henry Moore: 'Time-Life Screen' (1952-3), unrealised designs for the English Electric Company (1954) and 'UNESCO Reclining Figure'(1957-8).

Throughout the 1950s Moore received invitations from architects to produce sculpture for buildings and public spaces. These projects represent Moore's most fully realised attempts to integrate sculpture into the rhythm and fabric of a building. In each example he introduced abstract and biomorphic forms into the restrained elements of modern architecture.

Website

http://www.henry-moore.org/hmi/exhibitions

This exhibition explores the everyday theatricality of the body through paintings of the human figure.

Curated by Jennifer Higgie (writer and editor of Frieze magazine) who has selected works from the Arts Council Collection this group show features both historical and contemporary paintings of people.

The exhibition includes significant loans by artists ranging from Walter Sickert, Lucian Freud, Richard Hamilton and David Hockney through to recent acquisitions of new work by Enrico David, David Noonan, Michael Fullerton, Rose Wylie and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

Description to follow.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Drop in family art workshop

Suitable for

• Family friendly

A talk by Tom Steele, in partnership with University of Leeds. Tom Steele will explore modernist art, literature and culture during the war years with reference to Leeds Arts Club, the literary magazine 'The New Age' (which Arts Club co-founder Alfred Orage was editing at this time in London), Michael Sadler, and the letters between Herbert Read and Jacob Kramer. He will look at the emergence of the abstract expressionist aesthetic , taking in T.E. Hulme's pieces in ‘The New Age’, Vorticism and the Read-Kramer correspondence as well as some reflection on Read's war poetry.

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• Not suitable for children

Until 31 May Our relaxed space for families and others features materials and imaginative activities to explore how and why people are imagined in artworks

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• Family friendly

BEA talk by Neil Hanson, in partnership with University of Leeds.
Bradford-born, JB Priestley was a man whose life virtually spanned the 20th Century, and a writer who was one of England’s best-loved literary figures. 'Priestley's Wars' traces a personal odyssey through his writings on war - as an enthusiastic volunteer in the First World War, and then a post-war transformation that would ultimately make Priestley one of the most influential voices for peace and disarmament. In previously unpublished letters he wrote while serving on the Somme, it’s possible to detect the foundations of the voice of the hugely successful author, playwright and broadcaster of the inter-war years, whose "Postscripts" radio broadcasts in the early years of the Second World War attracted audiences of 16 million listeners, but which eventually so infuriated Churchill that the broadcasts were abruptly dropped.

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• Not suitable for children

Join our artist in residence and take part in joyful holiday activities for everyone based on how people move

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• Family friendly

WW1A talk by Anne C Brook, in partnership with University of Leeds. In May 1923, papers as far afield as Glasgow and Norfolk carried news of a controversial war memorial being installed in the University of Leeds by sculptor and designer Eric Gill. Gill's depiction of Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple had been commissioned by the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Michael Sadler. Exploring the origins of that commission, and responses to it, Anne Brook places the controversy in the context of other efforts - successful and unsuccessful - to create works of art which satisfied the need for focal points around which the war dead could be remembered.

Suitable for

• Not suitable for children