The Art Around Me

Introduction

I always say Art should have an effect, that is its purpose. This post will be a bit all over the place as I have written on Art before but, obviously, in different communities. I will share my previous posts and try not to repeat myself too much, by focussing on the places where I can find art to enjoy in Newcastle where I have lived for the last thirty years.

The music will be "The Night Watch" by King Crimson based on the painting by Rembrandt for no other reason than it is a great song about a painting.

Even though Newcastle is quite small I will miss lots of places but will include links to The Star and Shadow, and the John Marley Centre at the end of this piece.

This was one story where I went into my opinions on art if you want to take a peek.

And here is another

So without further ado I shall tell you a little about art around where I live.

The Laing

As it says, World Class Art. This place is full of amazing pieces of art including several by the Nort East's greatest Painter, John Martin who you can read about more fully in the piece below.

The funds to build the Laing Art Gallery were provided by Alexander Laing, a Newcastle businessman who had made his money from his wine and spirit shop and beer bottling business.

The gallery was founded in 1901.

Alexander Laing didn’t leave any paintings or other art to the Gallery. He said that he was confident “…that by the liberality of the inhabitants of Newcastle, it would soon be supplied with pictures and statuary for the encouragement and development of British Art”.

The gallery today is home to an internationally important collection of art, focusing on British oil paintings, watercolours, ceramics, silver and glassware.

This is an art gallery I frequent often, across the road from the Central Library and I always make sure I check out the John Martin paintings, as well as the many depicting the history of Newcastle.

The Baltic Art Centre

I remember the first time I visited here there was a Mecanno model of the Tyne Bridge on the sixth floor and when you should behind it, it completely blocked out the view of the real Tyne Bridge through the huge window. Very often when people see art they will say "I could do that", but they didn't, somebody else did. I could not have even thought of, let alone building that bridge.

I then saw some figures by Anthony Gormley (Who gave us The Angel Of The North) some were concrete figures with holes where the human eyes, nose and ears would be, and walking through them was a bit like wandering through Gateshead.

Then there were the wireframe figures that looked and felt like a crowd of ghosts.

The Hancock (The Great North Museum)

The Great North Museum: Hancock was purpose-built in Newcastle as a natural history museum in 1884 to house the growing collections of the Natural History Society of Northumbria.

Noted Newcastle-born ornithologist and trailblazing taxidermist John Hancock was instrumental in securing funds for the museum. When he died in 1890 the museum, briefly called the New Museum of Natural History, was renamed the Hancock Museum.

John Hancock donated his prolific collection of British birds to the museum, many of which are in the museum today.

Though this is more of a museum than an art gallery, it has a lot of Egyptian, Greek and Roman art and artefacts.

Conclusion

These are three of the main places to see art in the Newcastle area, and the two places below are contemporary thriving centres of art as well.