1 September - 30 October
Cumbria-based designer John Leech uses photography to explore his surroundings. His simple compositions express relationships between different elements, often printed with bold contrast and stark values. His digital images are heightened in a conventional ‘darkroom’ manner derived from his traditional art school training.
15 October - 15 December
The Barber is famed for its collection of Old Master paintings, but it is also home to magnificent works on paper. This two-part display consists of a selection of Old Master drawings, including fine works by Tintoretto, Rubens, Rembrandt and Degas, and German Expressionist prints and drawings, including images by Max Beckmann, Käthe Kollwitz, and others. This display is featured at Abbot Hall as part of an exchange of works: during the same time slot works from Abbot Hall’s collection will be exhibited at the Barber in ‘A Rage for the Lakes - Forty Watercolours and Drawings from Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal.’
Supported by - Arts Council England, Northern Rock Foundation, The John Ellerman Foundation, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
1 November - 18 December (continues in 2011)
This display of works by members of the Society of Wood Engravers runs concurrently with the exhibition of Thomas Bewick’s engravings in the main Gallery, demonstrating the continuity of this technique in the North and exploring the extraordinary versatility of the medium.
12 November - 18 December 2010
This is the first exhibition devoted entirely to the vignettes of the extraordinary artist-engraver and naturalist Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). Born in Northumberland, Bewick worked in Newcastle until his death. His childhood on a small farm on the banks of the river Tyne and his love of the countryside had a profound influence on his work. He became renowned for his woodcuts of animals, hundreds of small pictures that are remarkable for their vitality through painstaking accuracy. Bewick referred to the pieces as ‘tale-pieces’, intended as illustrations of ‘some truth or point of some moral’.
Supported by - Arts Council England, Northern Rock Foundation, The John Ellerman Foundation
