National museums Liverpool has unveiled a busy programme of free exhibitions to take place across its eight museums and galleries in 2014.
The exhibitions are to feature some of the biggest names in the art world, including a brand new showcase at the Museum of Liverpool to show the cities role in the first world war.
The Walker and Lady Lever art galleries are to display a schedule of classical and contemporary exhibitions from JMW Turner to Grayson Perry.
Considered one of Britain’s greatest landscape painters, JMW Turner will present Turner: travels, light and landscape February 14 showing a variety of works on paper rarely displayed due to their light sensitivity.
This will be followed By Rossetti’s Obsession: Images of Jane Morris June 20 at the Lady Lever. Serving as a favoured model to Pre-Raphaelie painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the showcase will reveal a contrasting image of Jane as herself reflecting upon her actual life and interests beyond modelling.
Coinciding with Liverpool Biennial The Walker will host two exhibitions starting with Grayson Perry’s The Vanity of Small differences May 17 displaying six tapestries exploring taste, class, aspiration, and identity in a British context.
The John Moores painting prize will open on July 5 breaking away from tradition – first being held in 1957.
Director of Art Galleries, Sandra Penketh said: “This will be another strong year for our art galleries. We have lined up several fantastic exhibitions of both classical and contemporary work at the Walker Art Gallery and Lady Lever.
“Turner continues to be one of Britain’s most popular and important artists. So it will be a real treat to be able to show some of his rarely seen masterpieces. We are extremely excited that the John Moores Painting Prize will be a summer exhibition and we hope this will expose the prize to an ever bigger audience.”
In the first half of the year the International Slavery Museum will host three major exhibitions.
Brutal Exposure: the congo January 24 an exhibition of photographs taken by missionary Alice Seeley Harris which document the exploitation and brutality in the Congo Free State in the early 1900s.
Their spirits January 31 is a stunning exhibition by internationally acclaimed Jamaican artist Laura Facey. The central installation is a 12 metre slave ship canoe which contains more than 1,300 resin miniature figurines. The slave canoe conjures up images of Antony Gormley’s clay figures or the Chinese Terracotta Army.
And the third exhibition Between slavery and freedom on St Helena April 4 explores finds from the ‘liberated’ African cemetery on the remote south Atlantic island.
Dr Richard Benjamin, Head of the International Slavery Museum, added: “It is a major coup to be able to show Laura Facey’s work which will have a strong impact on our visitors. It’s also significant that this work is going on show in Liverpool – a city central to the transatlantic slave trade.
“We are also sure our visitors will be moved by our photographic exhibition on the Congo which has a number of fascinating Liverpool links. St Helena – a tiny island in the South Atlantic played an important – but often forgotten – role in the annals of the transatlantic slave trade. This is the first exhibition looking in detail at a fascinating and disturbing part of its history.”
Merseyside Maritime Museum will continue its Titanic and Liverpool: the untold story which has attracted more than one million visitors sincing opening in March 2012.
Included this year an exhibition of shipping posters May 16 consisting of 25 posters used to promote transatlantic travel.
Word Musuem will also bring back it hugely popular Magic Worlds March 2. An exhibition exploring the ethereal realms of fairies, folklore, wizards and witches.
Continuing into 2014 will be By Jove! It’s Ken Dodd! Photographs by Stephen Shakeshaft and April Ashley: Portrait of a lady.
For more information and complete listings from all the galleries CLICK HERE:
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