£8m facelift lets York Art Gallery’s special gems really sparkle

SO now we know: York Art Gallery will open to the public again on Yorkshire Day - August 1 – following its £8 million refurbishment.

That’s a little later than art lovers might have hoped: the original aim was for the gallery to open by Easter. In all, it will have been closed for 31 months by the time the doors do open again..

If what we have seen of the refurbishment so far (including the opening up of the long-hidden Victorian roof) are anything to go by, however, it will prove to have been well worth the wait.

As the gallery revealed earlier this week, it plans to mark the opening with a series of stunning exhibitions.

In the “Madsen” galleries – the new suite of three galleries on the ground floor named after brother and sister Peter and Karen Madsen, who left their £2.2 million estate to the gallery – doors open there will be an exhibition of Italian Old Masters, many on loan from other collections; a display of Dutch and Flemish paintings; and an exhibition of the gallery’s own best paintings of York, including LS Lowry’s famous portrait of Clifford’s Tower.

In the Burton Gallery, meanwhile, there will be an exhibition of Victorian, modern and contemporary work – including works by David Hockney, Paul Nash, the sculptor Sarah Lucas, and York’s most famous artist William Etty.

The Upper North Gallery will host an exhibition curated by York-based artist Mark Hearld, including some new work by Mark himself, while the new Centre of Ceramic Art will house the art gallery’s unprecedented collection of modern ceramics. It will showcase more than 2,000 works – including a 17 metre long “wall of pots” which will be displayed by colour to create a rainbow effect.

On these pages, we feature just a few of the works that will be on display to the public on August 1, to get you in the mood...

Reproduced courtesy of The Lowry Estate
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            LS Lowry, Clifford’s Tower, York, 1952 Commissioned in 1952 under the Evelyn Award scheme, this is one of the gallery’s most popular paintings. It is very different from Lowry’s more typical, crowded street scenes: a bare, almost bleak scene, with the focus on the 13th century tower itself, and on the medieval spire of St Mary’s to the left. “In the distance to the right is a cooling tower and chimneys,” say Jennifer Alexander, the art gallery’s curator of fine art. “It seems that Lowry perhaps enjoyed that juxtaposition between the ancient and the industrial buildings.”

Copyright David Hockney

David Hockney, Egyptian Head Disappearing into Descending Clouds, 1961 One of Hockney’s earlier paintings. The artist rose to fame in the 1960s when he was a student at the Royal College of Art, says Jennifer Alexander. “The loose, sketchy style of painting seen here is characteristic of his works from this period.”

Portrait of St Zenobius by an unknown assistant of Bernardo Daddi, c 1345 The oldest painting in the art gallery’s collection, this is a fragment from an alterpiece, painted by an assistant to one of the leading painters of the early renaissance. “It depicts St Zenobius, the first bishop of Florence, and was probably commissioned to decorate a church in the city,” says Jennifer.

York Museums Trust (York Art Gallery)

William Etty, Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball, 1833. Commissioned in 1833 by MP Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, this painting, York’s Etty, depicts two of the MP’s five daughters, Charlotte and Mary. Charlotte, the eldest daughter, is shown helping to decorate her sister’s hair with a ribbon and a rose.

Copyright Tate, London 2015

Paul Nash, Winter Sea, 1925-1937 The most powerful painting from a series based on the sea wall and breaking waves at Dymchurch on the Dorset coast, where Nash lived from the 1920s, says Jennifer.

Sarah Lucas, NUD 4 Contemporary sculpture of a stylized nude by one of the leading young British artists to emerge in the 1990s.

Edward Matthew Ward, Hogarth’s Studio in 1739, painted 1863 Ward’s imaginary recreation of Hogarth’s studio as it would have been in 1739 is a “gesture of homage to the earlier artist”, says Jennifer. It shows Hogarth having just completed his famous portrait of Captain Thomas Coram.

When the gallery reopens on August 1 following its £8 million refurb, York Art Gallery will have 60 per cent more space than before. Improvements will include:

• The Victorian roof opened up

• A suite of three new galleries on the ground floor able to house major touring exhibitions

• A second entrance at the back of the gallery, leading to a new "artist’s garden" and to the Museum Gardens

• The new Centre of Ceramic Art in two new spaces on the first floor

• A new first floor learning room

• Better visitor facilities, including new café and shop

• Better storage for collections