Laing Art Gallery

Our Little Artists sessions are starting up again on 15 January!

Join us on Mondays during term time from 10.30-11.30 am to participate in a warm up with movement and motion, gallery exploration with fun interactive activities, a practical art activity with various materials, snacks, and story time.

Little Artists aims to be fully inclusive and anyone with additional needs is welcome. Sessions are aimed at 1-5 year olds. Advanced booking essential.

Have you attended one of our picture of the month talks? Every Saturday at 11am, one member of the Friends of the Laing Art Gallery gives a talk on a painting from our collections. The talks are informative, free, and a great way to socialise.

This month's painting is The Young Anglers Barras Bridge by Thomas Miles Richardson (1822), pictured here. Find out more about this painting and share the experience with fellow art lovers.

Happy New Year! ⭐🎉

Pictured here is an illustrated New Year greeting card that was made and sent in the 1930s.

The Laing Art Gallery re-opens on 2 January. We look forward to welcoming you in the New Year!

Happy Holidays! 🎁⭐

Please note that we will be closed from 31-1 January inclusive for the New Year.

This painting is attributed to the Italian artist Francesco Foschi, who painted many snowy mountain scenes. He often used an almost monochrome colour range with a dark, threatening sky. ❄

📷: Winter Scene in the Italian Alps attributed to the artist Francesco Foschi (c. 1735-1765). Laing Art Gallery (DETAIL).

Merry Christmas! ⭐

Pictured here is Christmas Morning by Henry John Yeend King (c.1878-1889). This oil painting shows two women who are probably walking home from a Christmas morning service at church, which can be seen in the village behind them. The bold colours and square brushstrokes of the picture were influenced by French open-air painters of the time.

📷: Christmas Morning by Henry John Yeend King (c.1878-1889). Laing Art Gallery. (DETAIL)

Winter has arrived! ❄️ Today, Friday 22 December, is the winter solstice.

This painting is by the French artist Edouard Bisson and represents the spirit of winter as a young woman. It is one of a number of paintings by the artist depicting different seasons.

📷: Winter by Edouard Bisson (1904). Laing Art Gallery (DETAIL).

Gbenga Ilumoka Wearing a Red Top (1998) is one of the two paintings we have in the Laing and Hatton collections by Nahem Shoa.

Nahem Shoa made this portrait of his friend and fellow artist Gbenga Ilumoka in 1998. The portrait was painted from life during two morning sittings. Shoa has noted that many friends who posed for him during this period felt that during visits to museums, the only depictions of Black people showed them as slaves or servants. His portraits of his contemporaries attempt to readdress this omission in a positive way.

📷: Gbenga Ilumoka Wearing a Red Top by Nahem Shoa (1998), Hatton Gallery. Image permission granted by the artist.

Happy Holidays! 🎁⭐

Please note that we will be closed from 24-26 December and 31-1 January inclusive for the holidays.

We're pleased to announce that we've won the Best Arts & Business Partnership award at the North East Culture Awards!

The award recognises the highly successful partnership between the Laing Art Gallery and Ad Gefrin Anglo-Saxon Museum and Distillery in Wooler.

Ad Gefrin was the headline sponsor for the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery, which was on display from September – December 2022 and drew more than 56,000 visits to the gallery.

The last Little Artists session of the year is on Monday 18 December.

Discover the Laing with your little ones and support their early development in a fun and relaxed way, exploring a different theme each week. Each session involves a warm up with movement and motion, gallery exploration with fun interactive activities, a practical art activity with various materials and a short story time.

This activity aims to be fully inclusive and anyone with additional needs is welcome.

Advance booking is essential and you can book your tickets here: https://laingartgallery.org.uk/whats-on/little-artists

📣 Entry to temporary exhibitions is FREE for those 21 years and younger. ⭐

If you are 21 years and younger, you can see our newest exhibition, Yevonde: Life and Colour, for free. This is a great opportunity to see some incredible photographs, explore the rest of the gallery, and stay out of the rain!

Pictured here is Lobster by Yevonde (1934). Lobsters were a Surrealist emblem and many of Yevonde's photographs have Surrealist elements. Man Ray photographed a lobster on the stomach of a classical bust around 1930. Salvador Dalí’s mixed media piece Lobster Telephone was made in 1936 and Elsa Schiaparelli’s Lobster dress followed in 1937.

📷: Lobster by Yevonde (1934), purchased with support from the Portrait Fund, 2021 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Due to popular demand, we have now added a second session (afternoon) to our Saturday Art Classes!

Our Satuday Art Classes are an inclusive art class held on the first Saturday of every month for 10-15 year olds.

Participants will have the opportunity to work with professional art educators, working in a different medium or with a different technique each month.

Tickets are £5 plus booking fee. Find out more here: https://laingartgallery.org.uk/whats-on/saturday-art-classes-for-10-15-year-olds

Have you attended one of our picture of the month talks? Every Saturday at 11am, one member of the Friends of the Laing Art Gallery gives a talk on a painting from our collections. The talks are informative, free, and a great way to socialise.

This month's painting is Laus Veneris by Sir Edward C. Burne-Jones ARA (1873-1875), pictured here. Find out more about this painting and share the experience with fellow art lovers.

Please note that the last picture of the month talk of 2023 will be on 16 December.

THANK YOU - You helped us raise £10,464 for children and young people in our region ⭐ We are blown away with the generosity of everyone who donated.

Your donations will positively impact our museum learning programmes and the futures of young people in the North East 📍

We also wanted to say a special thank you to our match-fund pledgers, our champion funder, The Reed Foundation, and Brewin Dolphin Foundation.

3 HOURS TO GO - It's your very last chance to support our Big Give campaign!

We know that engaging with museums and galleries positively influences young minds, that's why we're raising money for our museum learning programmes. We can provide young people with the skills needed for a bright future. Please donate today, every donation is doubled -https://bit.ly/TWAMBigGive23

📣 IT'S YOUR LAST CHANCE TO HELP ‼️

Your donation will help us to improve the confidence, knowledge and skills of young people in our region.

Please donate what you can now - https://bit.ly/TWAMBigGive23 or click the link in our bio.

24 HOURS TO GO - It's your very last chance to support our Big Give campaign! 🎉⭐️

We know that engaging with museums and galleries positively influences young minds, that's why we're raising money for our museum learning programmes. We can provide young people with the skills needed for a bright future.

Please donate today, every donation is doubled - https://bit.ly/TWAMBigGive23 or click the link in our bio.

We’re aiming to raise £10,000 by Tuesday 5 December for our programmes supporting children and young people in the North East, to help set young minds up for bright futures. Every donation will be doubled, thanks to the Big Give – meaning your donation has twice the impact!

Donate here: https://bit.ly/TWAMBigGive23

We know that museums and art can support young people’s education. With your donation, we can provide more experiences to improve the confidence, knowledge and skills of young people in our region.

Pictured here is art made by children and young people who have visited the Laing Art Gallery. Our museum helps to foster the creativity, wellbeing, and the aspirations of young people in our region. They can walk through the galleries and become inspired by the artwork that shows their regional heritage, like Grey Horse Inn, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne (about 1830-1835) by George Balmer. In this painting, ships are moored in front of the medieval buildings of the Newcastle Quayside. Balmer was a leading Newcastle painter of shipping scenes.

Every £1 donated this week will be doubled. One donation, twice the impact! Donate what you can to help support the children and young people in our region here https://bit.ly/TWAMBigGive23 or at the link in our bio.

The likelihood of young people struggling with mental health has increased 50% since 2020. We know that engaging with museums and galleries positively influences young minds. Every £1 donated during the week will be doubled, support our mission now - https://bit.ly/TWAMBigGive23

We know that museums and art can support young people’s education ⭐ With your donation, we can provide more experiences to improve the confidence, knowledge and skills of young people in our region. All donations until 5 Dec will be doubled, meaning one donation, twice the impact! Donate what you can now - https://bit.ly/TWAMBigGive23
Big Give

Research shows that children and young people who participate in arts and culture:

⭐Display positive behaviours, such as empathy

⭐Develop skills and behaviours that improve school performance (cognitive abilities up 17%)

⭐Are 38% more likely to report good health

⭐Are more likely to gain and stay in employment.

Help us support the wellbeing of our region’s children and young people by donating to our Big Give appeal - https://bit.ly/TWAMBigGive23

Artists can interpret the same genre in vastly different ways.

The first slide shows Study of Flowers and Fruit by William Bell Scott (1860). Scott employs a Pre-Raphaelite technique in this oil painting, using a base layer of white paint. This gives an extra brilliance to the colours of this composition. He built up the forms with tiny brushstrokes and little dots of colour, which allowed him to use pure, unmixed colours for maximum brightness. This painting can be seen in our Northern Spirit gallery.

The second slide shows Still Life with Fruit by an unknown artist (19th century). The colours in this painting are much darker and it lacks the brightness of the first painting.

This genre is called 'still life,' which can include man-made or natural objects, such as flowers, fruit, vegetables, ceramics, and wine.

Want to treat your loved ones to something special this holiday season? Our shop is open Monday-Saturday from 10am-4.30pm and is as beautifully curated as our galleries. Find unique handmade gifts, like gloves from Turtle Doves that are made from 100% recycled post-consumer cashmere, or spa-day treats, like luxurious hand creams from William Morris.

Today is . Even though the Laing Art Gallery is closed on Sundays, you can still shop online at shoptwmuseums.co.uk.

Please note that the last day to order online for delivery by Christmas is 10 December.

In this oil painting, a young woman is gazing at men with picks and shovels who are working on the excavations for the High Level Bridge, which was opened in 1849. About 650 families lost their homes in the building work for the bridge and Central Station. The type of old buildings previously occupying this area can be seen in the background.

Excavations for the High Level Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne (1846) is by Thomas Miles Richardson, who was the leading artist in Newcastle in the early 19th century. You can see this painting on display in our Northern Spirit gallery.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider becoming a Supporter. Just £5 per month can help us to connect people to the past, present, and future of our region. You can also give the Supporters programme as a gift to your loved ones who want to keep art, culture, and heritage at the heart of the North East.

Find out more here: https://shorturl.at/dgmzH

Have you seen our display New Perspectives: L-INKing Communities? This display, curated by L-INK, brings together artworks that explore the architecture and activity that communities share. To us, community offers comfort, it means home, it means belonging.

L-INK is a group of young people aged 16-21 who work with the Laing Art Gallery to engage in a process of creative collaboration.

One of the paintings in the display is A Tale by the Way by Harry Watson (1922). Harry Watson was a painter from London who showed this picture in Newcastle in 1922. Dashes of bright blue and lilac colour in the shadows help give an impression of dazzling light breaking through the leaves. The dappled sunlight and dabs of colour are characteristic of the British Impressionist style of the early 20th century.

Just £5 per month can help us care for the North East’s art, culture, and heritage, and helps support programmes like L-INK. Find out more information here: https://www.twmuseums.org.uk/supporter?utm_source=Email&utm_campaign=270723-Email-Campaign-StephensonSteam-SupportersProgramme

📷: A Tale by the Way by Harry Watson (1922). Laing Art Gallery (DETAIL).