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Archaeologists from Liverpool Museum have unearthed thousands of items ranging from medieval pots to clay pipes whilst excavating the site of an ancient farmhouse.

Excavations at Big Lea Green Farm, St Helens, have revealed that the original medieval building may have had a moat as a status symbol.
The first house on this site in the 1400s would have been in a very different landscape from today.

A team from the museum’s field archaeology unit has spent ten weeks exploring the site, which will soon be cleared to make way for a new £40 million Somerfields supermarket distribution depot. The company is funding the £100,000 dig.

It is thought that the farm was rebuilt several times from the 1400s until a German bomb destroyed the building in 1942. The team have revealed what is probably the original building’s two-roomed cellar. Nearby can be seen the filled-in crater of the bomb which destroyed the building.

Project leader Andy Towle is appealing for people who remember the farm in Lea Green Road before it was bombed to contact him on 0151 478 4041. Photographs are also being sought.

Another exciting find is a tumbled-down wall built from glass waste, an early example of recycling associated with the glass industry previously a common feature around St Helens. Up to 10,000 items have been unearthed including late medieval pottery, clay pipes dating from the 1700s, oyster shells, parts of kilns used in the pottery industry and Victorian jam pots.

Pottery specialist Jeff Speakman says: “This is one of the largest amounts of 15th and 16th century pottery we have excavated. The later material was mostly used for hardcore during building – probably brought from nearby Sutton Heath, which had potteries until recent times.”

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McCARTNEY PAINTINGS STAY
Five pictures on show at Walker

Five paintings from the hit exhibition the art of Paul McCartney will remain on display at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, for a month after the show closes this Sunday 4 August 2002.

Sir Paul has agreed that the colourful pictures can stay up until Monday 2 September 2002 which will include Liverpool's Beatles Festival over the Bank Holiday weekend.

The five paintings are the popular Big mountain face, Brains on fire, Home territory, Egypt station and Macca's tribute to wife Heather, Big heart.

Julian Treuherz, keeper of galleries, says: "the art of Paul McCartney was a hit with our visitors so we are delighted Sir Paul has let us keep five pictures on show for an extra month."

The five will be moved to another of the Walker Art Gallery's rooms so that the temporary exhibition galleries can be prepared for the forthcoming John Moores 22 exhibition of contemporary painting which runs from 14 September to 8 December 2002, coinciding with the Liverpool Biennial.

Admissions to Walker Art Gallery have been buoyant since the gallery reopened in February 2002 following its £4.3 million refurbishment.

In the first eight weeks since the art of Paul McCartney opened on 23 May 2002 there have been 42,876 visits to the Walker Art Gallery. This is an increase of 129% on the same period in 2000 when 18,685 people visited the Walker Art Gallery: the temporary exhibition was Constable's Clouds. ( the Walker Art Gallery was closed for much of 2001.)

SLAVERY REMEMBRANCE DAY
Doreen Lawrence among guests

The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition will be commemorated on the historic quaysides at the Museum of Liverpool Life this Friday 23 August 2002.

The keynote speaker will be Doreen Lawrence of the Stephen Lawrence Trust Fund. The fund was established in memory of her son, the victim of a racially-motivated murder. The campaign to put Stephen's killers behind bars continues.

Doreen will talk about the importance of Slavery Remembrance Day, which recognises 23 August 1791 as the date on which a successful revolt by enslaved Africans began. A series of actions was set in motion that would bring about the end of slavery.

Other speakers will be Dr David Fleming, director of National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside (National Museums Liverpool), and singer/actress Ebony, a former Brookside star. Chief Angus Chukuemeka, chairman of the African Representative Council, will lead a libation.

The event which will also feature a poem by Michelle Walker and performances by Angels and Band of Gold star Cathy Tyson, the River Niger Orchestra and singing group Sense of Sound.

Garry Morris, National Museums Liverpool outreach worker, says: "The support for Slavery Remembrance Day is generating a national momentum. This year we have collaborated with London's National Maritime Museum and Anti Slavery International on a joint event in Greenwich. There have also been links between young people in Liverpool and London using our respective Slavery History Trails.

"We have been working with individuals in the black community to develop this commemoration and other projects since the Transatlantic Slavery Gallery was launched at Merseyside Maritime Museum in 1994.

"Museums have an important role to play as educators in the promotion and development of an active citizenship for social change.

"The twenty-third of August is of global significance. Enslaved Africans were the principal agents of their own liberation. They unleashed a movement for racial justice and social change that continues to reverberate around the world, as we address the aftermath of slavery across the continents of Europe, Africa and the Americas''.

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ANN BUKANTAS
Walker Art Gallery recruits a new Curator of Fine Art

After a six-month search, Ann Bukantas joins National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside today as the new Curator of Fine Art.

Ann heads to Liverpool from Hull where she was promoted to Head of Art in 1995 and where her responsibilities focused on running the Ferens Art Gallery. During her time in Hull Ann was responsible for organising numerous exhibitions, played an important part in the gallery's £3 million award-winning development in the early 1990s and for a time acted as head of the city's museum service.

With specialist knowledge of seventeenth century Netherlandish art, portraiture and contemporary British art, Ann will find the Walker Art Gallery's collections of particular interest. She joins at an exciting time, just a week before the final judging of the John Moores 22 exhibition of contemporary painting - Britain's biggest contemporary painting competition, a key strand in the Liverpool Biennial (14 September to 24 November 2002) and one of the high points in the Walker Art Gallery's calendar.

Ann's responsibilities at National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside (National Museums Liverpool) will encompass all three of National Museums Liverpool's art gallery venues - Walker Art Gallery, Sudley House in Mossley Hill and Port Sunlight's Lady Lever Art Gallery. Ann will take direct responsibility for National Museums Liverpool's collections of contemporary art; she will lead the fine art curatorial team and will initiate exhibitions in the Walker Art Gallery's newly refurbished special exhibition galleries.

"I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with one of Britain's greatest public collections within a city that is so firmly committed to putting itself on the international map," explains Ann. I have always sought to find innovative ways to create a welcoming atmosphere in galleries that encourages learning for people of all ages. I would like to look at the feasibility of developing unique facilities for children at the Walker Art Gallery and at ways to bring new visitors into both Sudley House and the Lady Lever Art Gallery. The National Museums Liverpool collections are outstanding. I am keen to encourage local people to discover the treasures of these galleries and to come back time and again."

"Leaving the Ferens after almost 17 years will be a major wrench, but I can't think of a better, more exciting place to be going to," Ann concludes.

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LENNON'S MOSAIC ON SHOW
The Magic Eye at Museum of Liverpool Life

A stunning mosaic designed by Beatle John Lennon for his swimming pool is going on show at the Museum of Liverpool Life.

The Magic Eye is a 16ft by 6ft artwork which was a feature at John's Kenwood estate in Surrey. Weighing more than two tons and made up of 17,000 ceramic pieces, the mosaic dates from the mid-1960s.
It was painstakingly restored in his spare time over six years by Beatles fan Tom Lorimer, a lab technician at Liverpool John Moores University. He removed each of the one-inch-square pieces, known as tesserae, and re-set them on to wooden boards in exactly the same design.

Tom had been contacted by Merseyside businessman Wladek 'Butch' Reszczynski, who had been asked to clear items from the derelict site of the 1984 International Garden Festival. He found The Magic Eye and stored it in a field in the Wirral, only later discovering the Beatle connection.

The mosaic is thought to have been inspired by John's wide-ranging interests in spiritual matters. In 1967 the Beatles spent months in India studying the teachings of Maharishi Yogi.

Tom says; "John Lennon was fascinated by Indian mysticism. He designed The Magic Eye based on the Maharishi's teachings about the Eye of Knowledge or the Middle Eye. It was in very poor condition. Moss was covering it in parts but I offered to restore it and Butch agreed."

Museum of Liverpool Life curator Jen McCarthy says; "We are delighted to have The Magic Eye on display, particularly for the annual Mathew Street Festival which attracts thousands of Beatle fans over the Bank Holiday weekend."

You are invited to send a reporter and photographer to see Tom Lorimer complete the installation of The Magic Eye at 1030 hours this Thursday 22 August 2002 in the foyer of the Museum of Liverpool Life . Museum staff will also be available for interviews.

Tom will be giving a free talk about the discovery and restoration of The Magic Eye at 12 noon this Saturday 24 August 2002 to visitors at the Museum of Liverpool Life. The mosaic will be on display for about a month. For further information about The Magic Eye please contact Johnson Young Associates on 01704 871476.

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LOVE IN A MIST: EARLY 20TH CENTURY WATERCOLOURS
Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight 22 June - 1 December 2002

A charming display of 14 watercolours by Robert Anning Bell and his contemporaries, Love in a Mist: Early 20th Century Watercolours takes its name from a painting by J. Herbert MacNair.

Love in a Mist shows three figures in a misty setting, typical of what is known as "The Spook School" of painters, originally from Glasgow, who were known for their pictures with wraith-like figures.

MacNair, his wife Frances and Robert Anning Bell taught in Liverpool University's applied art department and promoted the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement among their students.

Followers stressed the beauty of craftsmanship for its own sake, working on book illustrations, paintings, mosaics, stained-glass, murals and posters. They regarded the Middle Ages as a golden age.

These artists were influenced by the dream-like subjects of Burne-Jones and the decorative schemes of French painter Puvis de Chavannes (1824 - 98), producing imagery relating to mystery and imagination.

The exhibition includes a theatre design by Charles Ricketts (1866 - 1931), perhaps best remembered today for his Illustrations of Oscar Wilde's work.

Other exhibits include delicate and meticulous works by Maxwell Armfield, E. Reginald Frampton and Frederick Cayley Robinson. Both Frampton and Robinson painted with tempera to give images a fresco-like texture.

Jessica Feather, exhibition curator, says: "All these works are from our collections. Most have not been on display for a number of years and some have never been shown before."

MUSEUM RECRUITS TWO NEW STRATEGIC MANAGERS
National Museums Liverpool successfully fills two newly-created senior posts

National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside (National Museums Liverpool) is well on its way to completing the first phase of its management restructure with the appointment of two new strategic managers to the senior management team.

Amy de Joia will take up her new post as Director of Development and Communications on 1 August, while Sharon Granville will join National Museums Liverpool as Director of Public Services at the end of September 2002.
Amy de Joia has for the last two years been National Museums Liverpool's Project Director and is promoted to this new key post. She will bring her project management and fundraising talents to lead a newly created directorate, which will include National Museums Liverpool's outwardly focused activities including exhibitions, fundraising, marketing, public affairs, web and exhibitions departments.

Sharon Granville comes to Liverpool after an impressive career at Tyne & Wear Museums, where she was promoted to Head of Management and Senior Curator North Tyneside Museums by 1996. She has for the last 9 months been Acting Director, following David Fleming's move to Liverpool last October. This new post will bring a strategic overview to the work of the curatorial teams across the five museums and three art galleries operated by National Museums Liverpool.

David Fleming, Director of National Museums Liverpool, sees these two new appointments as key to his plans for improving the strategic direction of the organization to meet the demands made of museums in the twenty-first century.
"We are fortunate to have attracted and secured the appointment of two such capable, high-calibre museum professionals. It is a pleasure to be in a position to promote someone of Amy de Joia's ability whose career within National Museums Liverpool has already spanned curatorial as well as strategic management and development responsibilities. On the other hand, Sharon Granville will not only bring superb strategic management experience and an understanding of another large regional museum service to Liverpool but, no doubt, National Museums Liverpool will find itself benefiting from her fresh perspective."

These appointments complete the first phase of National Museums Liverpool's restructure and will form the backbone of the senior management team along with Museums Secretary Malcolm Harrison, Head of Corporate Services Tony Archard and Head of Human Resources Irene Newton, whose new roles and responsibilities start on 1 August 2002.

Notes for Editors

Amy de Joia, 39
Studied Ancient Egyptian with Coptic at the University of Liverpool, the only university in the country offering a purely language-based hieroglyphics course. She was both an undergraduate and postgraduate scholar. Her postgraduate research concentrated on Liverpool Museum's collection of Ancient Egyptian stelae and inscribed statuary held at Liverpool Museum.
Liverpool Museum Registrar (1989-1993)
Principal Assistant to the Director of National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside (1993-1995).
Project Officer for the Liverpool Museum development plan creation (1995-1998)
Project Director, National Museums Liverpool Into the Future project (1998-2002)

Sharon Granville, 40
University of Stirling BA Hons in English, 1984
Member of the Museums Association, 1998
Senior Finance & Administration Officer, Tyne & Wear Museums (1993-1994)
Principal Management Officer, Tyne & Wear Museums (1994-1996)
Head of Management and Senior Curator North Tyneside Museums - Stephenson Railway Museum and Segedunum Roman Fort, Tyne & Wear Museums (1996-2002)
Acting Director, Tyne & Wear Museums (October 2001-May 2002)

THE MAGIC OF PETER PAN
Fairies move statue and Captain Hook lends a hand

Liverpool's world-famous Peter Pan statue is now on public display in National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside's Conservation Centre, bringing it a little nearer to Never-Never Land.
George Frampton's much-loved statue celebrating JM Barrie's character might not have been restored by fairy magic, but it has been lovingly restored by John Larson (head of sculpture conservation) and his Liverpool-based team.

The statue has undergone extensive conservation work over the last few months, including the replacement of Peter's pipes, a fairy's head and a squirrel, all of which had been stolen or vandalised while the statue was in the city's Sefton Park. The Conservation Centre team used computerised laser scanning and bronze casting techniques to copy the missing features from the original plaster moulds, held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, in order to recreate the missing features.

The conservation team also made replacement rabbit ear to help the Belgium owners of one of the other eight Peter Pan's delighting children across the world. Their statue had also suffered war time bullet damage.
Today the Liverpool statue looks as good as new and will be on display at the Conservation Centre until Liverpool City Council, who own it and who commissioned the conservation work have completed a review of security in the city's parks including Sefton Park. It will then be decided if it is to be returned to its original location or somewhere else in the Sefton Park possibly next to the refurbished Palm House.

The magic of Peter Pan will also feature in a series of Thursday afternoon workshops being staged at the National Museums Liverpool's Conservation Centre throughout August. The activities for children, Peter's Pipes and Wendy's Wings will be held at 1.30pm, 2.30pm and 3.30pm on Thursdays 15, 22 and 29 August. Children will be assisted by Captain Hook and his pirates to make pirate hats, Jolly Roger flags, Tinkerbell fairy wings and crocodiles when the Centre's video room is turned into Never-Never Land.

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LAST CHANCE TO VIEW TRANSPORT COLLECTION
Only a few weeks left to see the new Jaguar X-Type

'X1' the first Jaguar X-Type to be built at Halewood, is the latest attraction in the summer transport display, Cars and Boats and Bikes and Things at the Museum of Liverpool Life. The exhibition runs until 8 September 2002.

Placed alongside one of National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside's favourite exhibits, the 1963 Ford Anglia 105E, the X1 is on loan from Jaguar. Lucy Marsh, Jaguar's spokeswoman, says "Jaguar are delighted to support this exhibition as Halewood's first produced Jaguar X-Type symbolises the continuing strength of Merseyside's car manufacturing. Jaguar's refurbishment of the Halewood plant is one of the most ambitious plant transformations ever undertaken within the motor industry, with over £3000 million invested in new manufacturing facilities."

In contrast, the Ford Anglia was the first car to be produced at Halewood, back in 1963, and was ceremonially driven off the production line by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. Featured as prize in a competition in the Liverpool Echo, the Anglia was won by a Mr Taylor and had the special registration of 1KF. Fords bought the car back some three-years later and donated it to Liverpool's museums.

You are invited to send a photographer to see the new Jaguar X-Type at 10.30 hours this Friday 23 August 2002 at the Great Western Building, Museum of Liverpool Life. Sharon Brown (curator of Land Transport & Industrial Collections) will be available for interview.

Visitors will have an opportunity to win a spin in the new Jaguar X-Type plus a tour and lunch at the Jaguar factory, Halewood.

Other vehicles on show range from the new - a Merseyside Police BMW motorcycle - to old favourites such as a bicycle built by John Rushton of Woolton in 1870, through to an AER motorcycle manufactured locally by A E Reynolds in 1938. The other exhibits include fine examples of a 1910 Vulcan motorcar, a bathchair made for Adeline Watt of Speke Hall around 1900, a Davies horse-drawn oil tanker from 1902 and a cane wheelchair used at Ogdens Tobacco Company in the 1930s.

There are also various boats on display including the newly conserved pilot vessel Edmund Gardner moored at the historic quaysides just outside the GWR building

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Delight at increased visitor figures

The introduction of free admission to the Government sponsored national museums and galleries has resulted in 2.7 million extra people going through their doors, new statistics show. This is a 62% increase compared to the year before.

The figures for the first seven months of the Government scheme (released by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) revealed that National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside has seen a 67% rise in total visitors. A spokesperson for National Museums Liverpool released the following statement:

“National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside (National Museums Liverpool) is delighted to see an increase in visitor numbers over the last seven months. This can be attributed to a number of factors, including the reintroduction of free admission.

When National Museums Liverpool was forced to charge admission it was at just £3 for unlimited visits to all our eight museum and gallery venues for a full 12 months - thus great value. Going free has increased numbers of repeat visits and encouraged more local visitors into our museums and galleries. But we believe the offer at our venues has been another important factor in our increasing visitor figure - the Walker Art Gallery, national gallery of the North reopened with new special exhibition galleries in February; we held an extremely popular exhibition of Leonard da Vinci drawings from the Royal Collection at the Lady Lever Art Gallery this Spring; and the Museum of Liverpool Life has seen steady double figure increases in visitors since it opened three new galleries funded by HLF, in July 2000. These factors, together with the publicity surrounding free admission have certainly had an impact on our visitor numbers, in particular attracting more visits from people who live in the area.”

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PAINTINGS FIT FOR THE QUEEN
20 paintings by local children go on display at the Walker Art Gallery

Prize-winning paintings by twenty school children from across Merseyside will be exhibited alongside artworks by Turner and Sir Paul McCartney in the new exhibition galleries at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
The pictures, the best from almost 4000 entered in the BBC Radio Merseyside Charitable Trust art competition, were created to celebrate The Queen's Golden Jubilee. Many are portraits of The Queen herself.

The twenty paintings will be on display for the public in the Walker Art Gallery from Monday 22 July until Sunday 4 August and will be seen by The Queen on her official Golden Jubilee visit to the art gallery on Thursday 25 July 2002.

"We are delighted to show work by young artists in the Walker Art Gallery and to encourage children to paint and draw. The work on show has been selected from almost 4000 entries created by 3 to 17 year olds from schools across Merseyside and is an impressive demonstration of young local talent," says Myra Brown, exhibitions officer at the gallery.

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SHIPPING LINE REMEMBERED
Blue Funnel to China, Merseyside Maritime Museum

The legendary Blue Funnel Line is featured in a small exhibition at the Merseyside Maritime Museum.
Blue Funnel to China 19 July 2002 - 24 Feb 2003 looks at the ships and their crews which made this line so memorable. Founded by Alfred Holt - a member of the Liverpool shipping dynasty - in 1865, Blue Funnel played a major part in the port's activities for more than 100 years.

This was the world's first regular, long-distance cargo steamer service and over the years the company gained a tremendous national and international reputation.

The China run was the company's core business although from the 1890s it expanded its services into a world-wide network covering the United States, Australia, Java and across the Pacific Ocean.

The quality of Blue Funnel vessels was much admired, as the company was meticulous about safety and the reliability of machinery. Crews were not only recruited in Britain but also on mainland China and Hong Kong. The origins and development of Liverpool's Chinese community, one of the oldest in Europe, are partly due to the Blue Funnel connection.

Alfred Holt was an engineer who developed top-range technology for his ships. The exhibition looks at the first Blue Funnel ship, the Agamemnon, which was also the first long-distance cargo liner in the world. She could sail to Mauritius without refuelling - a remarkable feat for the time.

Services ended in the early 1970s with the arrival of container vessels which revolutionised cargo shipping. Exhibition curator Alan Scarth says: "We have had help from former Blue Funnel seafarers, who have contributed with both exhibits and interviews. "

The exhibition will also feature colourful posters, ship models, company memorabilia and a short extract from the 1960s Blue Funnel promotional film The Blue Highway.

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ECHOES OF YESTERYEAR

Liverpool Memories: the photographs of Stewart Bale Ltd
12 July - 27 October 2002

The Museum of Liverpool Life presents a unique exhibition of over 70 photographs from Stewart Bale Ltd, providing an exclusive visual and oral history of everyday places where Liverpool people worked, shopped and enjoyed themselves.

Museum staff working with volunteers from the Feelgood Factory Reminiscence Group have selected images for this exhibition from National Museums Liverpool's collection of 200,000 glass plate and film negatives in its Stewart Bale archive.

The photographs on display record more than 20 years (from the1930s - 50s) of Liverpool history, including local landmarks of yesteryear, the Legs of Man public house, and Owen Owen Clayton Square.
The Feelgood Factory, established in 1999, is a healthy living centre charity based in Netherton. Members of their Reminiscence Group have recorded their memories to bring to life the photographs featured in this exhibition.

" It was the pub you went into for a drink before going to the Empire Theatre. Once I went to see 'Allo'Allo and the pub was full of theatregoers dressed up as characters from the show." (member of the Feelgood Factory Reminiscence Group recalling memories of the Legs of Man public house, Lime Street).

Herbert Stewart Bale founded Stewart Bale Ltd in 1911 primarily as a printing and advertising business. Its client list included famous Liverpool names such as Cunard, Meccano and Coopers.

Joined by his son Edward Stewart Bale, the company earned a reputation for the excellent quality of its commercial pictures, largely due to its use of large format cameras in contrast to other firms who had abandoned these in favour of modern equipment. The company finally closed its doors in the 1980s.

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FIVE THOUSAND PICTURES FOR TOP PAINTING SHOW
Big boost for entries to John Moores 22

There has been a large increase in the number of paintings being entered in the prestigious John Moores 22 exhibition of contemporary painting after the rules were changed, allowing artists to send in slides of their paintings.

A bumper crop of more than 6,000 slides - representing about 5,000 paintings - arrived at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, by the deadline last week. (Most artists have submitted one slide per painting but some have sent close-ups, hence the difference.)

Julian Treuherz, keeper of the Walker Art Gallery, says: "This is great news because a broader spectrum of paintings has been entered. It vindicates our decision to allow artists to send slides for their initial submissions.

"This change was brought in to make entry more accessible for emerging artists possibly reluctant to part with their best works for lengthy judging periods. They might also find transportation costs prohibitive. Artists can now submit up to four works at the slide stage which we feel has also encouraged entries."

Previously artists were only allowed to enter one painting so that previous shows had about 2,000 entries. The three judges - artists Fiona Rae and Jenny Saville along with artist/writer Matthew Collings - are spending this week viewing the slide entries to choose the short-list of around 300 paintings. They judge each painting on its own merits without being given the name of the artist.

Julian adds: "Once again we have had a terrific variety of artists of all abilities, ranging from enthusiastic dabblers to top names. We judge them all fairly and squarely - the winners are chosen on quality alone. We are confident this year's show will be of a very high standard."

John Moores 22 - Britain's biggest painting competition - carries a top prize of £25,000. There are four further prizes of £2,500 each. (Around 60 paintings will be hung in the exhibition, which started in 1957.)

In a further change to former arrangements, final judging of the shortlisted works will take place in Walker Art Gallery's special exhibition galleries where John Moores 22 will be displayed from 14 September to 8 December 2002.

"The new two-stage submission will ease the practical difficulties of assembling so many paintings for judging and will help to make this a really fabulous show," adds Julian.

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The Earl & the Pussycat: The 13th Earl of Derby's Life and Legacy
1 June - 8 September 2002, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

A Victorian Earl's amazing collections are featured in a fascinating exhibition being staged at Walker Art Gallery to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his death.

The Earl & the Pussycat: The 13th Earl of Derby's Life and Legacy looks at one of the greatest Victorian naturalists - Edward Smith Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, who donated his collections to found Liverpool Museum and who was patron of nonsense poet and artist Edward Lear. It features animal and bird specimens from the Earl's huge collections as well as pictures by Lear, whose Owl & the Pussycat was written for Lord Derby's grandchildren at Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool.

A number of creatures being displayed are now extinct, including a 200-year-old flightless swamp hen which lived on an island off Australia, the Himalayan mountain quail which vanished in Victorian times, the Paradise Parrot (last seen about 1930) and the Long-tailed Hopping Mouse which lived in Western Australia.

Edward Stanley, who died in 1851, was one of the giants of the 19th century natural history world and amassed an astonishing menagerie of live animals as well as prepared specimens at Knowsley Hall.

He employed Edward Lear, an equally remarkable man, to paint detailed pictures of specimens in his collections. During his five-year spell at Knowsley, Lear began composing his hilarious nonsense poems and limericks which remain popular to this day. They include such classics as The Owl & the Pussycat and The Jumblies as well as dozens of five-line illustrated limericks.

More than 320 remarkable exhibits will be on display including more than 40 Lear paintings of birds, animals and landscapes, an 8 ft high mounted eland antelope named after Derby, the first budgerigar hatched in Britain, family portraits, miniatures, furniture, books and seashells. Exhibition curator Clemency Fisher says: "The 13th Earl's influence is still being felt today. He had numerous birds, plants, insects and other animals named after him."

The exhibition is being sponsored by The Earl of Derby, Knowsley Safari Park, Sea Containers Irish Sea Operations and Christie's International plc.

The Earl & the Pussycat: The 13th Earl of Derby's Life and Legacy

A selection of press images are available on CD ROM or by e-mail or ISDN as tiff or j-peg scans, please contact National Museums Liverpool Press Office: tel. 0151 478 4615, fax 0151 478 4777 or email press@National Museums Liverpool.org

Key to copyright: © The Right Honourable The Earl of Derby - ED, © National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside - National Museums Liverpool

Portrait of 13th Earl of Derby, aged 61, by William Derby (1837) © ED
Crayon and chalk portrait of Edward Lear by Holman Hunt (1857) © National Museums Liverpool
First budgerigar hatched in Britain - died aged three weeks in Knowsley aviaries, 1848. Mounted specimen © National Museums Liverpool
Extinct white swamp hen - unique mounted type specimen of porphyrio stanleyi, a flightless bird which lived on Lord Howe Island, off Australia, 200 years ago © National Museums Liverpool
Mongoose lemur by Joseph Woolf (1851) - probably painted from living specimen at the Zoological Society of London © ED
Groundhog by Lear (1836) - probably painted from specimen in Lord Derby's collection. North America © ED
Eastern Native Cat or Quoll by Lear (1834) from eastern Australia. Now rare and confined to Tasmania. Painted from living specimen at Knowsley © ED
Cavitella landscape (1844) by Lear, who painted in the Mediterranean under the sponsorship of the 13th Earl © ED
The east front of Knowsley Hall with pheasants by Lear (1835) © ED
Pig's Ear, a cotyledon by Peter Brown 1750 - 1790 (botanical illustration). Succulent plant from southern Africa © ED
Miniature of Edward George Stanley (later 14th Earl), aged about two, by Anne Mee (circa 1801) © ED
Watercolour of extinct Pink-headed Duck by Bhawani Das. Painted between 1777 and 1782 for Lady Impey in India, from living bird © National Museums Liverpool
Lord Derby's Aracari by John Gould (1835)
Lord Derby's Eland. Hand-coloured lithograph by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, from Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall © National Museums Liverpool

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TEDDY BEAR STORY
The UK's biggest exhibition celebrating 100 years of the teddy bear - one of the world's most enduring and appealing toys

Bear lovers will be making tracks to Liverpool Museum this autumn for Britain's biggest celebration of teddy bears. The exhibition, created by the Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green will be shown at Liverpool Museum from 19 October 2002 to 23 February 2003 and will then transfer to London from 29 March to 31 December 2003.

It's a century since German toy manufacturers Steiff made their first jointed toy bear. Teddy Bear Story - 100 years of the teddy bear will bring out of the toy box bears from the last 100 years along with children's favourite bear characters from books, TV and films. The exhibition will feature around 400 teddy bears and other bear-related objects including important bears from the major bear manufacturers, original EH Shepard drawings of Winnie the Pooh and 'celebrity' bears from cartoons, television and film, including Rupert and Aloysius.

Not only is it 100 years since the first jointed toy bears were manufactured by the German toymakers Steiff, but 2002/03 also marks a century since US President, Theodore T Roosevelt's nickname 'Teddy' became linked to the toys. Roosevelt had refused to shoot a bear that had been cornered for him on a hunting trip and Clifford Berryman captured the moment in a cartoon published by the Washington Post. It is believed that the name 'Teddy' was quickly adopted by a New York store owner who labelled a plush bear in his window display 'Teddy's Bear'. Within a few years the teddy craze had taken hold in America and soon reached Britain.

The exhibition will look at the whole world of teddy bears, from the time Richard Steiff made drawings of bears at Stuttgart Zoo through to teddies at the start of the twenty-first century like the Philippe Starck bear. Displays will show how bears are made and will highlight the characteristics given to teddies by individual manufacturers. There will be a section on teddy bear stories in books, cartoons, films, TV and music, showing how teddy bears from eighty-year old Rupert to Bear from Bear in the Big Blue House have become popular children's characters. A further section will look at how bears have been involved in good works like Paddington, the mascot for Action Research, and BBC Children in Need's Pudsey Bear.

There will be a programme of family fun days from teddy making demonstrations to teddy bear picnics and some special events for arctophiles (teddy bear collectors).

The Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green is a branch of the V&A and holds an important collection of teddy bears and bear-related material. The museums are grateful to Steiff and other manufacturers for loans of bears and children's books which will make this the biggest and best exhibition celebrating 100 years of the teddy bear.

The exhibition is sponsored by Margarete Steiff GmbH.

and at
Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green, Cambridge Heath Road, London
Exhibition dates 29 March to 31 December 2003
Open 10am-5.50pm, closed Fridays
Information desk 020 8983 5201
Exhibition and events information www.museumofchildhood.org.uk

Teddy Bear Story - 100 years of the teddy bear

Press images available on CD as high resolution .tiffs or 300dpi .j-pegs. Please e-mail press@National Museums Liverpool.org or call 0151 478 4615:

Teddy bear, English, c.1913 © Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum
Mechanical (clockwork) Bear early twentieth century © Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum
Teddy Bear - part mechanical, German c 1935 © Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum
Care Bear, 1980s and Schuco Yes/No Bear c 1930s © Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum
Rupert Annual 1942, Rupert tries the boots. Rupert characters TM and copyright Express Newspapers
Rupert Annual 1942, Rupert has a fall. Rupert characters TM and copyright Express Newspapers
Rupert Annual 1942, Rupert sees the farmer. Rupert characters TM and copyright Express Newspapers
Rupert Annual 1987. Rupert characters TM and copyright Express Newspapers
Paddington, a nylon plush bear with real Dunlop rubber boots. Made by Gabrielle Designs, English c 1980 © Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum
A.I. Teddy, based on the toy talking film character, nylon plush. Made by Tiger Electronics (part of Hasbro), China 2001 © Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum

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THE ART OF PAUL McCARTNEY
24 May - 4 August 2002, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

A major exhibition of paintings and sculpture by Sir Paul McCartney will open at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool on 24 May.

The exhibition will bring together around 70 art works from the last twenty years, including previously unseen and unpublished pieces which show how McCartney's creativity as an artist extends far beyond music.

'I felt that only people who'd gone to art college were allowed to paint,' he says. McCartney is not inclined to intellectualise about his work, 'a lot of the time all I want to do is paint . sometimes just putting the paint on is to me more interesting than actually thinking what it all means.' Although his inspiration derived from people, places and Celtic themes is sometimes apparent, other works are more abstract and illustrate an undogmatic approach.

During the 1960s when the worlds of art and music came together like never before, McCartney's interest in visual art developed. He worked closely with artists Peter Blake, on the cover for Sgt Pepper, and Richard Hamilton, on the White Album cover, and began collecting art himself, often with the guidance of gallery owner Robert Fraser. Finally with encouragement from his wife, Linda, he began to paint.

Since the 1980s McCartney has painted over 600 canvases. He held his first show in Germany in 1999 and was so encouraged by the way it was received that he agreed to a bring a more comprehensive exhibition to his home city of Liverpool.

Portraits, landscapes and abstracts will all feature in the exhibition, including Home Territory - showing the streets around Speke; Big Mountain Face - perhaps his most impressive painting as well as newer work like Larry King.

The Walker Art Gallery, the national gallery of the North, has a long tradition of exhibiting work by local artists including Adrian Henri, Maurice Cockrill, Nicholas Horsfield and Julia Carter Preston and already has a painting by Stuart Sutcliffe in its collection.

Press preview (accredited press or by invitation only) Thursday 23 May 2002 10.30am. All press must contact the press office on 0151 478 4615 or press@National Museums Liverpool.org by Monday 20 May to register attendance.

Notes for Editors Walker Art Gallery, William Brown Street, Liverpool
Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 12-5pm
Information desk 0151 478 4199
Exhibition and events information www.thewalker.org.uk/mccartney

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Age: The Final Frontier
'Generations Apart?' Celebration Showcase

From May 5 2002 Merseyside Maritime Museum will showcase the results of the ambitious 'Generations Apart?' project. Over the last 2 years thousands of people of all ages have taken part in this museum-based project exploring the generation gap through drama, poetry, performance, video, music and dance. This two year intergenerational arts project brought together Merseyside's young people and seniors through a series of creative workshops and reminiscence sessions.

Forming the backdrop to this celebration will be a mosaic display of local landmarks and props from the reminiscence boxes being demonstrated by young and old participants from the project. Following the launch there will be various events over the next 2 weekends including Mersey Mosaics, Meccano in the Making, Super Models, and Kenny & Kate and the Half Term Time Machine.

TURNER'S JOURNEYS OF THE IMAGINATION
24 May - 4 August 2002, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Merseyside's most important works by the renowned landscape painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) will be brought together for the first time in this exhibition celebrating the birth of domestic tourism and its influence on Turner's art.

JMW Turner travelled around Britain and Europe throughout his life. Many of the works on show relate to pencil sketches made directly from the landscape and were in response to commissions from specific patrons.

The paintings, watercolours and prints on display span the length of Turner's career. While early watercolours recall an older topographical tradition, works from the artist's later travels show the development of his expressive use of light and colour. The exhibition concludes with a number of sparkling, late oil paintings including The Wreck Buoy.

Like other travellers, Turner visited palaces, cathedrals and castles as well as Britain's country houses. It was a time when visitors flocked to seaside towns attracted by the entertainment, architecture and claims about the health-giving properties of seawater. He first visited Margate in 1786 and returned to the town frequently in later life. He also painted views of other coastal towns such as Falmouth, Dover and Portsmouth.

In addition to sketches and paintings, the exhibition includes displays of travel guides and optical devices like a camera obscura and a Claude glass - essential equipment for the travelling artist.

This is the first exhibition that brings all of these works together and is a rare opportunity to see the delicate prints and watercolours from Walker Art Gallery's collection. The exhibition of these light-sensitive pieces has been made possible because of the state-of-the-art controllable conditions in the Walker's new exhibition galleries, opened in February 2002 and funded with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Tilney Investment Management is sponsoring this exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery

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CALLING ALL PAINTERS!
John Moores 22 exhibition of contemporary painting

Artists are invited to enter John Moores 22, Britain's biggest painting competition, which this year carries a top prize of £25,000. From today, artists can download the registration form at www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/22/ or apply to Walker Art Gallery for an entry pack.

For the first time the competition's organisers, National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside (National Museums Liverpool), will be requesting the submission of slides at the initial entry stage. This change in procedure has been introduced to make entry more accessible for emerging artists who may be reluctant to part with their best works for lengthy judging periods and who may find transportation costs prohibitive. It will also give artists an opportunity to submit up to four works at the slide stage. The deadline for slide submission is 1 July 2002.

Artists Fiona Rae and Jenny Saville and artist/writer Matthew Collings have agreed to judge the competition and will short-list up to 300 paintings from the slides submitted. And in a further change to former arrangements, final judging of the shortlisted works will take place in the Walker Art Gallery's special exhibition galleries where the John Moores 22 exhibition of contemporary painting will be displayed from 14 September to 8 December 2002.

"The new two stage submission will ease the logistical difficulties of assembling so many paintings for judging, and the final judging in the gallery should bring a new coherence to the exhibition." explains Julian Treuherz, keeper of art galleries at National Museums Liverpool.

It is expected that around 60 paintings will be chosen for inclusion in the exhibition. The first prize winner will receive £25,000, which includes purchase of the winning painting by Walker Art Gallery for the gallery's permanent collection, and four further prizes of £2,500 will be awarded.

The John Moores is Britain's leading contemporary painting competition started by John Moores, the founder of Littlewoods, in 1957. The exhibition continues to be supported by the Moores family through the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust. Past winners include David Hockney, Richard Hamilton, John Hoyland, Lisa Milroy and most recently, Michael Raedecker. Normally held biennially, the competition has been put back a year in order to tie in with the Liverpool Biennial, Britain's only biennial of contemporary art of which it is a part, and to fall in line with the city's bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2008.

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TOUCHY, FEELY, SQUASHY 2
Return of popular Liverpool Museum exhibition
20 April - 15 September 2002

Touchy, Feely, Squashy, the popular exhibition featuring interactive 'green' sculptures which visitors can crawl through, returns to Liverpool Museum.

Artist Jan Niedojadlo has created five large sculptures using recycled and reclaimed materials.

He says: "I make sculptures that are listened to, touched and crawled through. People of all ages have tried and tested my sculptures which have given a great deal of pleasure in a safe environment.

"My aim is to bring out people's physical instinct for exploration and adventure all within the experience of art."

Jan, who is based in Nottinghamshire, uses oil-based recycled materials such as plastic, rubber and foam to create his sculptures.

He adds: "Education is a very important part of the work I do. Visitors are encouraged to participate by climbing inside the exhibits in order to touch, smell and listen. People of all ages, both able-bodied and with special needs, have experienced my sculptures."

Liverpool Museum keeper Loraine Knowles says: "Touchy, Feely, Squashy was a big hit when it first came to the museum in 1999. We are delighted to welcome it back - three of the sculptures have not been seen here before. Touchy, Feely, Squashy 2 provides a hands-on experience and we will have a lot more interactive attractions in the new galleries opening next year."

The museum is currently being refurbished as part of £40 million National Museums Liverpool Into the Future project which will see it double in size.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEONARDO
Anniversary marked at Lady Lever Art Gallery

The 550th birthday of artist Leonardo da Vinci will be marked at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Wirral, where an exhibition of ten of his drawings has been attracting crowds of visitors.

Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci from the Royal Collection: A Golden Jubilee Celebration has just one week to go: the Lady Lever exhibition closes on Sunday 21 April 2002 before continuing on its tour of three other UK galleries.

This unique collection of drawings by the Renaissance master was lent to the gallery as part of the celebrations to mark the Queen's Golden Jubilee.

The Royal Collection holds the world's most important group of Leonardo drawings, unrivalled in terms of its size and breadth of subject matter. During its time at the Lady Lever up to 500 people an hour have been seeing the remarkable drawings chosen to reflect all stages of Leonardo's career and the wide range of his interests such as military engineering, anatomy, botany and cartography.

Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452 in a small village near the town of Vinci in Tuscany, central Italy.

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Titanic anniversary at museum
90 years since Liverpool-registered liner sank

This weekend sees the 90th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic - a tragedy which continues to fascinate people with its many tales of heroism, bad luck and coincidence.

The huge White Star ship struck an iceberg at 11.40 pm on the night of 14 April 1912 during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Just over two-and-a-half hours later she sank with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

Merseyside Maritime Museum has a remarkable collection of Titanic memorabilia in its Floating Palaces of the Edwardian Age gallery. The centrepiece is the original 20 ft long builder's model used by Belfast shipbuilders Harland & Wolf to publicise the ship.

Other items in the growing collection include an original lifejacket, the official inquiry report, passengers' personal belongings, items from lifeboats, plans and timetables.

Now the museum has acquired some White Star line china plates identical to those used on the Titanic. Tony Tibbles, curator of maritime history, says: "They may have been used on the ship because Harland & Wolf carried out sea trials which included providing meals and accommodation, as on a real voyage."

Titanic never visited Liverpool but she had strong links with the city. Many members of the crew came from the city and the head of the White Star line, Bruce Ismay, lived on the Wirral and had a Liverpool office.

To mark the anniversary, two of the museum's role players will bring the tragedy to life for visitors over this weekend, Saturday and Sunday 13 / 14 April 2002. One is a first class lady passenger who recounts how lifeboats, some with plenty of space, were lowered from the stricken vessel. The other is a fictitious Liverpool Echo maritime correspondent who describes the London inquiry into the disaster.

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Presentation of World Ship Trust Awards

Merseyside Maritime Museum nets two top heritage prizes Two of the World Ship Trust's prestigious Maritime Heritage Awards are to be presented to Merseyside Maritime Museum for its work in helping to preserve our sea heritage.

The awards go to the Edmund Gardner pilot boat, at the museum's Historic Quaysides, and the museum's top ship conservation and restoration expert John Kearon.

Both awards will be presented by Trust president Jaques Chauveau at a ceremony in the dining saloon of the Edmund Gardner attended by leading figures from the world of maritime heritage.

Mike Stammers, keeper of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, said: "We are delighted to receive these awards which further enhance our standing as one of the great maritime museums of the world."

John Kearon, who has an international reputation for his work in recording and preserving historic ships and boats, said: "It is a great honour to receive this award. I am very proud that my work has been recognised in this way."

The Edmund Gardner, built in 1953, could accommodate up to 32 pilots and served Mersey shipping for nearly 30 years before being replaced by high-speed launches. She has been a popular attraction at the Historic Quaysides for many years.

The World Ship Trust is dedicated to the recognition of, and support for, historic vessels. It bestows its Maritime Heritage Awards upon those ships considered of "transcendent importance" in the context of maritime history and heritage.

Further information on the Trust may be obtained from 202 Lambeth Road, London SE1 7JW. Telephone / Fax 0207 385 4267; e-mail: wstrust@aol.com

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TALKING TRADITIONS
Irish Music and Dance in Two British Cities
Museum of Liverpool Life
15 March - 16 June 2002

A new exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool Life uses photographs, music and exhibits to show how Irish traditions are maintained and developed by Irish people living in Britain.

Talking Traditions: Irish Music and Dance in Two British Cities explores how the complementary traditions of Irish music and dance are expressed by communities in Liverpool and Coventry. It has been organised by Liverpool University's Institute of Popular Music.

Both cities were chosen for this exhibition because they have considerable Irish populations.

Curator Jen McCarthy says: "Liverpool has a very public image as an Irish city. The most dramatic influx of Irish people to Liverpool was during the 1840s at the time of the Great Famine.

"However, the Irish population of Coventry was mainly established in the second wave of migration, with large numbers of Irish people settling there from the 1940s to the 1960s."

The themes of music and dance are supported by fascinating quotes by people from the different traditions. They tell of the importance of music and dance while growing up in Ireland and how they carried on the traditions.

Photographs show different types of Irish dancing in Liverpool and Coventry. Dancers from St Michael's Irish Centre in Liverpool describe their feelings. "It's very important that my family maintain these traditions because it's something that we have to keep going," says one.

Exhibits include traditional Irish musical instruments such as a fiddle and bow, tin whistles, accordion and concertina plus Irish dancing costumes, competition medals, trophies and souvenir programmes.

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GALLERIES BOOM AS ROMNEY GOES FREE
Record visitor figures at Walker Art Gallery and Lady Lever Art Gallery

Huge numbers of visitors have been filling both Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Wirral, as blockbuster exhibitions featuring the work of George Romney and Leonardo da Vinci help pull in the crowds.

Admission to both the Walker Art Gallery and Lady Lever has been free since 1 December 2001, as have all other National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside (National Museums Liverpool) venues. But there will continue to be small charges for some exhibitions.

However, visitor figures have exceeded all expectations at both venues. At the Walker, 25,000 people came through the doors in the first two weeks since the gallery reopened last month following a £4.3 million refurbishment - twice the anticipated number.

Walker Art Gallery exhibition, George Romney (1734 - 1802): British art's forgotten genius, will be free from Saturday 16 March 2002 after achieving target figures in just five weeks. The charge had been £2 (£1 concessions).

Similar large numbers were recorded at the Lady Lever where Leonardo da Vinci: Ten Drawings from the Royal Collection, a free exhibition, has also been a great attraction. All visitor figure records have been shattered with up to 500 people an hour visiting the gallery.

Dr David Fleming, National Museums Liverpool director, said: "We are delighted with these fantastic visitor figures. By scrapping admission charges for the second half of the Romney exhibition we will encourage even more people into the Walker Art Gallery. We want everyone in Liverpool and the surrounding area to realise that the Walker Art Gallery is their art gallery and that if they don't visit it they are missing out on something very special."

Both exhibitions close on 21 April 2002. Romney will transfer to the National Portrait Gallery where the admission charge will be £6. Leonardo will tour the country as part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations.

The next exhibitions to open at the Walker Art Gallery will be the art of Paul McCartney, featuring around 70 paintings and other works by the former Beatle, and Turner's Journeys of the Imagination. There will be a joint admission charge of £3 (£2 for concessions) for both exhibitions.

All money raised by admission charges is ploughed back into National Museums Liverpool to help make sure that top exhibitions continue to be shown.

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Saleroom record and major retrospective exhibition for British art's forgotten genius

8 February - 21 April, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

The opening of the major exhibition, George Romney 1734 - 1802: British art's forgotten genius in Liverpool follows hot on the heels of a record sale in New York for the eighteenth century artist.

Romney's Portrait of Mary, Mrs Sullivan was sold last week by Sotheby's, New York, for over £500,000; almost four times than expected and a record price for the artist at auction. This high price forms part of the groundswell of reappraisal that Romney's work deserves. The work, known to Alex Kidson, curator of the exhibition, was not selected although he has included fifty-three works that have never been publicly exhibited, some of which are major additions to the Romney canon.

George Romney 1734 - 1802: British art's forgotten genius opens at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool on 8 February and runs until 21 April 2002. It is the first ever comprehensive exhibition of Romney's work and aims to end two centuries of neglect, partiality and misrepresentation. It lays claim to the fact that he is in the same league as the other great British artists of the time: Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner and Constable.

In the exhibition's opening week, a major conference gathers academics from around the world, interested in reviving debate around this misunderstood but talented artist. The academics include one of Romney's distant relatives, Yvonne Romney Dixon, who organised an exhibition of Romney's drawings in the USA in 1998.

The year 2002 marks the bi-centenary of the death of George Romney, one of the key figures in British art in the late eighteenth century. He was known primarily as a portrait painter of England's most powerful people and their families. Temperamentally more progressive than his main rivals, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, Romney was for much of his career more fashionable than both. At his best, he both drew and painted with freedom and a dramatic expressiveness unmatched in eighteenth-century British portraiture. A hundred years ago Romney's reputation was at its peak. Collectors were eager to own his portraits of fresh-faced English women, above all his pictures of Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton, who in her youth was Romney's favourite model. As Victorian taste became outdated, Romney's art fell spectacularly from favour.

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GEORGE ROMNEY 1734-1802: British art's forgotten genius

8 February - 21 April, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

The year 2002 marks the bi-centenary of the death of George Romney, one of the key figures in British art in the late eighteenth century. He was known primarily as a portrait painter of England's most powerful people and their families. Temperamentally more progressive than his main rivals, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, Romney was for much of his career more fashionable than both. This is the first ever comprehensive exhibition of Romney's work and aims to end two centuries of neglect, partiality and misrepresentation. It lays claim to the fact that he is in the same league as the other great British artists of the time: Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner and Constable.

At the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the exhibition includes sixty-two paintings and seventy-two works on paper with over thirty of these exclusive to Liverpool. The exhibition includes fifty-three works which have never been publicly exhibited. Curator, Alex Kidson's seven years of research has located a number of works, such as Thomas Rackett, 1768 and Portrait of a Lady and Child, 1770, which represent major additions to the Romney canon. He has reattributed portraits to the artist, reuniting Mrs Margaret Ainslie, 1764 with her husband, Dr James Ainslie, 1765, for the first time since 1908. He has also traced for the exhibition other major works, such as The Indian Woman, 1793, which although well-known in Romney literature, has never been shown before and which can be seen as an original contribution to British art in the 1790s.

This exhibition balances paintings with a large number of drawings as well as evenly representing each phase of Romney's career and his artistic personality. Although some key works are lost, the show includes studies for them. Prime examples of Romney's work include National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside's own holdings of a number of superb portraits and a unique series of large-scale cartoons executed in black chalk and prompted by Romney's visit to Italy. Newly conserved and unseen for generations, the Liverpool cartoons provide a high point for this exhibition.

A hundred years ago Romney's reputation was at its peak. Collectors were eager to own his portraits of fresh-faced English women, above all his pictures of Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton, who in her youth was Romney's favourite model. As Victorian taste became outdated, Romney's art fell spectacularly from favour. His career remains little understood and many of his best-known works are among his least distinguished. Later in life, as overwork and disenchantment sapped his enthusiasm, his portraits became increasingly routine and even slipshod. However, he was able to re-kindle his energies for special sitters and when working on his occasionally sublime literary and historical paintings. At his best, he both drew and painted with freedom and a dramatic expressiveness unmatched in eighteenth-century British portraiture.

This exhibition revives the debate on Romney and reveals him as an artist who experimented, developed and reinvented himself continuously - one of the first great Modernists in British art.

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Leonardo drawings from The Royal Collection

5 February - 21 April, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight

Ten of the finest drawings by the Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci, from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, will go on show at Lady Lever Art Gallery, as part of the celebrations to mark the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen.

The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Wirral, is the first venue for the Royal Collection's touring exhibition, Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci from the Royal Collection: A Golden Jubilee Celebration, which will be shown from 15 February to 21 April 2002. This is an exceptional opportunity for people in the North West to see these masterpieces in one of the region's finest art galleries.The Lady Lever Art Gallery is one of National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside's three art galleries.

The Royal Collection holds the world's most important group of Leonardo drawings, unrivalled in terms of its size and breadth of subject matter. The ten drawings selected for the exhibition have been specially selected to reflect all stages of Leonardo's career and the wide range of his interests, such as architecture, engineering, anatomy, optics, geology and botany.

The exhibition includes dramatic studies of the sea-god Neptune, a cataclysmic tempest overwhelming a landscape, and mortars bombarding a fortress. There are delicate drawings of a beautiful youth in profile, the drapery of a kneeling figure and a sprig of blackberry plant. The highly finished map of southern Tuscany and the studies of a horse in three positions, the anatomy of a shoulder and of the science of light and shadows reveal other aspects of Leonardo's work.

Visits to the gallery and this special Leonardo drawings exhibition are free for all visitors.

A fully illustrated catalogue by Martin Clayton, Assistant Curator of the Print Room at Windsor Castle, will be published by the Royal Collection, price £6.95 to coincide with the exhibition.

The exhibition at the Lady Lever Art Gallery is sponsored by Unilever.

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Stuff and nonsense

The Earl & the Pussycat: Lord Derby's life and legacy
1 June - 8 September 2002, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

A Victorian Earl's amazing collections will be the subject of a fascinating exhibition being staged at Walker Art Gallery to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his death.

The Earl & the Pussycat: Lord Derby's life and legacy will look at one of the greatest Victorian naturalists - Edward Smith Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, who donated his collections to found Liverpool Museum and who was patron of nonsense poet and artist Edward Lear. It will feature animal and bird specimens from the Earl's huge collections as well as pictures by Lear, whose Owl & the Pussycat was written for Lord Derby's grandchildren at Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool.

Edward Stanley, who died in 1851, was one of the giants of the 19th century natural history world and amassed an astonishing menagerie of live animals as well as prepared specimens at Knowsley Hall.

Exhibition curator Clemency Fisher says: "The 13th Earl's influence is still being felt today. He had numerous birds, plants, insects and other animals named after him. A significant part of his collections at Liverpool Museum consists of type specimens - the first recorded by science - which are still studied by naturalists today. We are delighted to be staging this celebration of his life."

The exhibition is being sponsored by The Earl of Derby, Knowsley Safari Park, Sea Containers Irish Sea Operations and Christie's International plc.

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Turner's journeys of the imagination

24 May - 4 August 2002, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

All of Merseyside's most important works by Joseph Mallord William Turner will be brought together for the first time in this exhibition, celebrating the birth of domestic tourism and its influence on his art. Scenes both real and imaginary interpreted in Turner's own unique style are brought vividly to life in paintings, prints and watercolours spanning the artist's whole career.

The pictures in the exhibition are supported by displays of contemporary travel guides and optical devices, such as a camera obscura and a Claude glass, paraphernalia essential to the travelling artist at the time. Many of the watercolours in the exhibition were commissioned to illustrate travel guides but Turner was also an independent traveller whose journeys throughout Britain and Europe were always recorded in his sketchbook.

Four themes within the exhibition reflect the changing nature of tourism, as well as changing artistic tastes of the times:

Stately homes, palaces, cathedrals and castles - featuring architectural greats such as Linlithgow Palace, Scotland, which featured on the itinerary of many tourists. Castles like Schloss Rosenau in Germany gave visitors the opportunity to admire its Gothic architecture whilst strolling in the landscaped gardens.

The picturesque landscape - reflecting a new attitude towards beauty in nature in the late eighteenth century, artists would rearrange features in a landscape into a more ordered composition in order to improve upon nature. Turner's The Old Mill, Ambleside is a good example. This section will also include works from Turner's Liber Studiorum print series.

The seaside and the coast - the fresh air and sea cures of coastal resorts were starting to be recognised as beneficial for health and with the growth of railways in the 1830s and 40s, seaside towns became popular destinations. Turner skilfully captured a range of seaside scenes and coastal landscapes, from the atmospheric Off Dover to the bustling Falmouth Harbour.

The natural sublime - dramatic and awe-inspiring scenes showing the elemental forces of nature from the Falls of the Clyde to the Eruption of the Souffrier, painted to inspire terror and delight in the onlooker. This section includes watercolours of alpine scenery, the result of Turner's tours through France and Switzerland.

The works on show will include all the National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside's own collections of oils, watercolours and drawings - many of which are kept in store to protect them more . from light - and works from the Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead and Liverpool University's art collection. Walker Art Gallery will be the only venue for this exhibition.

Tilney Investment Management is sponsoring this exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery.

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The art of Paul McCartney

24 May - 4 August 2002, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool is to host the first comprehensive exhibition of Sir Paul McCartney's paintings, sculpture and photographs in Britain. The exhibition, the art of Paul McCartney, runs from 24 May to 4 August 2002.

"I am very honoured to have been offered this exhibition at Walker Art Gallery. John and I spent many a pleasant afternoon wandering around Walker Art Gallery when we were young, so going back to the 'Pool with my paintings will complete some kind of circle for me and I'm really excited about it," says Sir Paul about the show.

The exhibition will bring together around 70 paintings from throughout McCartney's career, including previously unseen and unpublished pieces using photographic and sculptural techniques. Curator, Michael Simpson explains that, "Paul's work is always engaging, often witty and at times illustrates his own moods, his love for family and friends, as well as his enduring fascination with colour."

Portraits, landscapes and abstracts will all feature in the show, including Home Territory - showing the streets around McCartney's childhood home in Speke; Big Mountain Face - perhaps his most impressive painting and Yellow Linda with Piano.

McCartney began painting in the early 1980s after a meeting the renowned American artist, Willem de Kooning. In the following years he painted regularly, amassing some 600 canvases in his British and American homes before finally mounting a show in Germany in 1999. Encouraged by the warm reception the German exhibition received McCartney agreed to a bring a larger, more comprehensive exhibition to McCartney's home city of Liverpool.

The exhibition, the art of Paul McCartney, at the Walker Art Gallery will be a key feature of Liverpool's cultural calendar in 2002 - the year in which the city is bidding to become European Capital of Culture for 2008.

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National Museums Liverpool Into the Future at the Walker Art Gallery

Reopening 8 February 2002

The building improvements at the Walker Art Gallery are part of National Museums Liverpool Into the Future, National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside's first major capital project for the twenty-first century.

The improvements will result in:

the creation of special exhibition galleries in rooms originally built in the 1930s which have been out of public use for many years. Builders and craftsmen have removed partition walls and false ceilings, refurbished mouldings and restored original wooden floors. The exhibition galleries have state-of-the-art environmental control systems and will enable the Walker Art Gallery to bring important touring shows to Liverpool for the first time as well as display major exhibitions originated by Walker Art Gallery's own curators.
specially designed rooms for light sensitive artworks. The Walker has an outstanding collection of watercolours, prints and drawings but has until now, been unable to display them in the carefully controlled conditions that they require. In the opening exhibition, George Romney, 1734-1802, these facilities will enable Romney's unique series of 18 black chalk drawings, to be exhibited together for the very first time.
Refurbished 17th century galleries. With improved air conditioning and light controls these rooms will display the Walker Art Gallery's fine collection of European paintings and an extraordinary loan of baroque silverware from Stonyhurst College, in splendid rooms with richly decorated walls of fine silk damask.
re-hanging the collection. By creating dedicated exhibition galleries, the Walker Art Gallery will now be able to bringing more works out of storage and onto view in its permanent galleries. Modern and contemporary art now has extra gallery space to reflect the riches of its modern collection.
enhanced collection care facilities, including a picture lift, air conditioning and automated lighting control, allowing the gallery to handle and display works in optimum conditions in the refurbished galleries.
improved visitor facilities, including an exhibition foyer and new shop on the first floor.

Work at the Walker Art Gallery is being carried out by:

Architects - Law & Dunbar-Nasmith. Previous projects include the Royal Museum of Scotland and the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.
Project Managers - Gardiner & Theobald Management Services
Mechanical and Electrical Engineers - David McAspurn Consulting Engineers
Structural Engineers - Curtins Consulting Engineers
Quantity Surveyors - Rex Procter & Partners
Main contractors - HBG

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A brief history of the Walker Art Gallery

Reopening 8 February 2002

The new galleries and visitor facilities at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery are the first improvements on this scale for 70 years.

Brewer owner, Sir Andrew Barclay Walker gave his name to the gallery when he paid for its construction to commemorate his term as mayor of Liverpool. Crowds watched as the 15th Earl of Derby opened the new gallery in 1877.

The following year, And When Did You Last See Your Father? - the Walker Art Gallery's most popular painting then and now - was purchased. The gallery's collection grew quickly and in 1881 a staggering 610,779 visitors wandered through the gallery's densely furnished rooms.

Sir Andrew paid for an extension to the building in 1884 to house the expanding collections which included Hunt's Triumph of the Innocents and Lorenzo and Isabella by Millais. These Pre-Raphaelite paintings and a number of important foreign works like Segantini's The Punishment of Luxury attracted crowds of visitors to the Victorian gallery.

Up to the First World War, the Walker Art Gallery's popularity continued with bequests of cash and art works enriching the collections. In addition, the gallery actively purchased old and new works: Horse Frightened By A Lion by Liverpool-born George Stubbs cost just £22.50 in 1910!

From 1924 to 1931 there was some criticism and discussion about the shortcomings of the permanent collection, resulting in a change to a bolder, more ambitious acquisitions policy.

The gallery closed in 1931-32 when three benefactors gave a total of £30,000 to completely remodel the entrance hall creating the spacious foyer and double staircase visitors see today. At the same time, an extension was built creating new picture rooms upstairs - refurbished in the last year, these rooms now form the Walker Art Gallery's special exhibition galleries. The opening exhibition in 1933 featured pictures by Gauguin and Picasso.

The Walker Art Gallery was closed to the public in 1939 and its collections were dispersed to places of safety for the duration of the war. The gallery reopened after some reconstruction in 1951 and purchases continued with Stubbs' Molly Longlegs, a Rembrandt self-portrait and The Virgin and Child with St Elizabeth and the Child Baptist by Rubens. In the last fifty years the gallery has actively acquired major works by European artists, for example, Degas' Woman Ironing, Poussin's Landscape with the ashes of Phocion and paintings by Cézanne and Monet.

Meanwhile, the John Moores exhibition - first held in 1957 - became Britain's biggest contemporary painting competition with over 2100 entries in 1999. The exhibition plays a major part in the Liverpool Biennial of contemporary art again in 2002.

Building on Walker Art Gallery's collection of John Moores prize-winning pictures, other recent acquisitions include Dangling by Gilbert and George and Christine Borland's installation English Family China.

The Walker Art Gallery is a leading element in Liverpool's bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2008.

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Rediscover Walker Art Gallery

The national gallery of the North

The Walker Art Gallery reopens on 8 February 2002 after a £4.3million refurbishment which will create new opportunities for public access, learning and enjoyment of its fine art collections and special exhibitions.

The Walker Art Gallery is unrivalled in the north of England for the breadth and depth of its collections - from the founding gifts of its Victorian benefactors to contemporary works from the John Moores exhibition.

The new facilities, four state-of-the art special exhibition galleries, include an exhibition foyer and galleries specially adapted for showing light-sensitive watercolours, prints and drawings - all created in rooms which have been closed to the public for many years.

In addition the Walker Art Gallery's permanent collection has been re-hung, giving extra rooms to display contemporary art and the two 17th century galleries, which house masterpieces such as Rembrandt's Self- portrait as a young man and Poussin's Landscape with the Ashes of Phocion, have been refurbished. New collection care facilities including air-conditioning and automated lighting control in the galleries and a new picture lift have also been created. A brand new Craft & Design gallery, the first dedicated to showing decorative arts, will open towards the end of 2002 completing this phase of the Walker Art Gallery's expansion.

Julian Treuherz, keeper of galleries, says: "The new galleries are beautiful spaces in which to show art and will enhance Walker Art Gallery's reputation as the national gallery of the North.

"This is the start of a new era for the Walker Art Gallery as a gallery not only housing one of the most important collections of fine art in the UK, but as a venue for stimulating must-see exhibitions - many originated by the Walker Art Gallery's expert curatorial team."

Funding the improvements

Improvements at the Walker Art Gallery have cost £4.3million and represent the completion of the second phase of the £40million National Museums Liverpool Into the Future building project for National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside.

The overall project has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund with £28million - the largest grant it has made to a museum. A further £3.65million has been awarded by the European Regional Development Fund.

Liz Forgan, Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), said: "It's wonderful to see the Walker Art Gallery's transformation and I'm extremely proud of the significant part that the Heritage Lottery Fund has played in this revitalisation process. The completion of the refurbishment works will enable visitors to have much greater access, both physically and intellectually, to the gallery's world-class collections in a fresh and innovative setting. This is part of HLF's overall £28million funding scheme of the National Museums Liverpool which will witness the development of Liverpool's cultural quarter an important contribution to the city's great history."

The Walker Art Gallery has received donations from the JP Jacobs Charitable Trust, the Moores Family Charity Foundation, the late Dr Nancy and Ewart Whitehead, the Bowring Bequest, the Peter Moores Foundation and Marsh (Charities Fund) Limited.

The Wolfson Foundation has enabled the simultaneous refurbishment of the seventeenth century galleries.

Further generous support for the 17th century galleries has been received from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the late Susan Cotton, BICC Cables Ltd and JP Jacobs Charitable Trust.

Free for All

Admission to the Walker Art Gallery is free for all visitors. There may be a small charge for some special exhibitions - see exhibition publicity.

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Funding the improvements

Walker Art Gallery, the national gallery of the North

The creation of special exhibition galleries at the Walker Art Gallery is a key part of National Museums Liverpool Into the Future, a £40million project that also includes the creation of three new galleries which opened at the Museum of Liverpool Life in July 2000 and the transformation of Liverpool Museum, due for completion in 2003. The building improvements at Walker Art Gallery, costing around £4.3million, will open to the public on 8 February 2002.

The Heritage Lottery Fund awarded National Museums Liverpool £28million for this flagship project - the largest grant it has made to a museum. A further £3.65million was awarded by the European Regional Development Fund.

In July 1998 a fundraising campaign was launched to secure partnership funding for National Museums Liverpool Into the Future, which has successfully attracted support both locally and nationally. In particular, Walker Art Gallery has received a major donation from the JP Jacobs Charitable Trust, as well as generous support from the Moores Family Charity Foundation, in memory of Sir John Moores, and from the late Dr Nancy and Ewart Whitehead, with contributions from the Bowring Bequest, the Peter Moores Foundation and Marsh (Charities Fund) Limited.

In April 1999 Professor Phil and Alexis Redmond launched the Public Appeal for National Museums Liverpool Into the Future. In addition to their personal support for the appeal, Professor and Mrs Redmond have also arranged two charity events at Mersey Television. The Public Appeal has involved hundreds of local people in a number of imaginative fundraising initiatives, such as Put Yourself in the Picture, which has built up a framed collage of donors' photos for display. Other fundraising activities have included a concert by George Melly, the first charity internet auction organised for a museums appeal, and a millennium prize draw, with prizes generously donated by local businesses and celebrities.

17th Century Galleries
In addition to the funding for National Museums Liverpool Into the Future, the Walker has been extremely fortunate to have received a major donation from the Wolfson Foundation, which has enabled the simultaneous refurbishment of the 17th century galleries. The galleries will be renamed in honour of the Wolfson Foundation.

Further generous support for the 17th century galleries has been received from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the late Susan Cotton and BICC Cables Ltd, with a donation from the JP Jacobs Charitable Trust and contributions from Sebastian Rathbone, Boodle & Dunthorne Ltd, Denis Cunningham, Mr and Mrs WA Limont, Still Waters Charitable Trust, Stuart Christie and Charles Elston.

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Laying the foundations for Liverpool's cultural future

Liverpool Museum, William Brown Street, Liverpool

Linda Minnis, Head of Community Affairs at Littlewoods, and National Museums Liverpool's director, David Fleming, will launch Liverpool Museum's atrium appeal on Thursday 10 January at 11am by laying the first floor tile.

The dazzling new atrium will be at the heart of Liverpool Museum. Its dramatic glass roof can already be seen on the William Brown Street skyline giving a clue to the futuristic redevelopments taking place inside. The atrium will be the focus for visitors to the enlarged museum when some of the new attractions open to the public later this year. Crossed by glass bridges providing access to new galleries and the Exploration Zone it will house services for school groups and other visitors.

The improvements to Liverpool Museum are part of the £40million National Museums Liverpool Into the Future project which has already seen exciting changes at the Museum of Liverpool Life and Walker Art Gallery, where new exhibition galleries will open next month.

Over 95% of the funding for National Museums Liverpool Into the Future has already been raised, with significant grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and European Regional Development Fund. Supporters are now being asked to sponsor £25 atrium floor tiles in order to raise £100,000.

Littlewoods are the main corporate sponsor of National Museums Liverpool Into the Future at Liverpool Museum.

Linda Minnis says: "Littlewoods are delighted to be associated with National Museums Liverpool's flagship development at Liverpool Museum, ensuring the delivery of outstanding exhibitions and events for generations to come. I am pleased to be joined by my two colleagues Bill Lawrenson and Joanne Kelly, who were the first Littlewoods employees to pledge money to the atrium floor tile appeal."

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Our venues

News archive 2002

Delight at increased visitor figures

CALLING ALL PAINTERS! John Moores 22 exhibition of contemporary painting

Titanic anniversary at museum 90 years since Liverpool-registered liner sank

Presentation of World Ship Trust Awards

Saleroom record and major retrospective exhibition for British art's forgotten genius

GEORGE ROMNEY 1734-1802: British art's forgotten genius

Leonardo drawings from The Royal Collection

Stuff and nonsense

Turner's journeys of the imagination

The art of Paul McCartney

National Museums Liverpool Into the Future at the Walker Art Gallery

Rediscover Walker Art Gallery

Funding the improvements

Laying the foundations for Liverpool's cultural future

News Archives

CALLING ALL PAINTERS!
John Moores 22 exhibition of contemporary painting

Titanic anniversary at museum
90 years since Liverpool-registered liner sank