A new exhibition at Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery explores over 200 years of landscape painting in the North of England and Scotland, focusing on the diverse and dramatic landscapes of the regions and how artists have depicted not only the world around us, but also our place within it.
Curated in partnership with The Fleming Collection, Romance to Realities: The Northern Landscape and Shifting Identities shows how, for centuries, the landscapes of the North have fascinated artists. Covering urban, rural, land, sea, and sky, landscapes have evolved from the Romanticised visions of early artists to the more complex and sometimes harsh realities in later works, and these paintings reveal both the physical changes in the land and the shifts in societal values and human experience.
Exploring the displacement of communities, migration to urban centres, and the enduring connection between people and their surroundings, the exhibition articulates conceptions of place and belonging, inviting visitors to reflect on the past, understand the present, and consider the future of these ever-changing landscapes. It encompasses work dating from the 1560s, early pioneers of British landscape art such as John Knox, Alexander Nasmyth, and John Martin through to modern and contemporary works by Anne Redpath, L S Lowry, and Joan Eardley.
Paintings from the Fleming Collection – considered the finest collection of Scottish art outside of public institutions – are exhibited alongside artworks from the Laing’s outstanding permanent collection. Key loans from regional and national collections include J M W Turner’s 1833 watercolour of Inverness, on loan from Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, High Life Highland.
Admission is by ticket, at £7 (£6 concessions), and free for ages 21 and under, which can be purchased on the day from the Gallery.
Also showing is Nerys Johnson: Disability and Practice, celebrating the late artist and curator’s experience of rheumatoid arthritis and its impact on her artistic practice through selections from a large body of her work donated to the Laing by her estate (21st Dec – 26th Jan).
