Past exhibitions

Detail of 'The Arcade, 81- 89 Lord Street, Liverpool' (1901).
Reproduced by permission of English Heritage.

This photographic exhibition featured the work of Bedford Lemere & Co, a leading English firm of architectural photographers between 1870 and 1930. Although based in London, the firm photographed extensively in Liverpool and Wirral for a wide range of influential clients.

This exhibition was developed in collaboration with English Heritage, custodians of the Bedford Lemere & Co collection. It comprised photographs, reproduced from the firm’s glass plate negatives, as well as objects from the archive. A wide range of Liverpool and Wirral places and people were featured including Cammell Laird, the Adelphi Hotel and Port Sunlight Village.

Find out more about An Age of Confidence: Photographs by Bedford Lemere & Co

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This fascinating exhibition looks at a dazzling array of women’s accessories that helped to add a touch of sparkle to fashionable outfits. The items on display range from when Queen Victoria was a girl up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

All of the 60 bags, shoes, hats, gloves and other accessories are from National Museums Liverpool's collections and many have never displayed before.

Find out more about The Finishing Touch: women’s accessories, 1830-1940

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After Guido Reni, 'Head of a Young Man', drawn about 1600.

Featuring 31 works from the Old Master collections of the Lady Lever and Walker Art Galleries, this exhibition explores why artists have drawn over the centuries. Some used drawing as a warm-up exercise to loosen the wrists before starting a painting or sculpture, while others used drawing as part of the creative process.

Artists in the exhibition include Luca Signorelli, Giorgio Vasari (author of the Renaissance classic Lives of the Artists), Guido Reni, Claude Lorraine and François Boucher. Fifteen of the works were bought in 1995 from the Weld Blundell Collection, formerly at Ince Blundell Hall, near Liverpool.

Find out more about Old Master Drawings: Guercino, Rubens, Tintoretto

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Detail of 'Adam and Eve'

Albrecht Dürer was one of the most successful Renaissance artists and the greatest of all printmakers. Focussing on Dürer’s engravings, which spread his ideas and imagery across Europe, this exhibition revealed how influential his prints were by displaying his masterpieces alongside work by his contemporaries.

A loan exhibition from the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow.

Find out more about Dürer and Italy

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Mary fishing c1915 © National Museums Liverpool
(by kind permission of Heather Price)

An exhibition of personal photographs giving a fascinating insight into the life and leisure time of a middle class family at the beginning of the 20th century.

The family in the photographs are the Urtons of Bebington on the Wirral – Jack, the keen amateur photographer, his wife Biddy, and their young daughters Mary and Lois. They show the family at home and in the garden, relaxing with relatives and friends. Days out to New Brighton and the Wirral coast are recorded, along with trips further afield including excursions into the Derbyshire countryside.

From these pictures we can also learn about the world of the amateur photographer in the early 1900s, and understand more about the significance of the still relatively new medium of photography during that time.

Find out more about An Edwardian Family Album

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'The Doorway' © The Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, University of Glasgow

James McNeill Whistler was one of the great masters of etching. This fascinating exhibition, drawn from the University of Glasgow's world-famous Whistler collection, explored the artist's creative processes, from the unmarked copper plate to finished print. 'The Gentle Art of Making Etchings' provided an illuminating picture of Whistler and his distinctive technique.

A loan exhibition from the Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, University of Glasgow.

Find out more about Whistler: The Gentle Art of Making Etchings

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French Impressionists gave a rare opportunity for visitors to see works usually only on display in Sweden’s capital. Works by Renoir, Monet, Degas and Rodin were amongst some of the artists featured in this exhibition of 13 treasured works. There were pieces from a selection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist pieces from the Walker Art Gallery collection and from Nationalmuseum Stockholm.

This small but exceptional exhibition, included Monet’s 'Break-up of ice on the Seine' and Renoir’s 'Young Parisian Lady' along with bronze sculptures by Rodin and Degas. It was an intimate study of the artists’ innate abilities to capture colour, light and movement in a style that is still much admired amongst today’s audiences.

The exhibition was a result of a collaboration between National Museums Liverpool and Nationalmuseum Stockholm.

Find out more about French Impressionists

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A rare opportunity to see some of the highlights of the incredible collection of British drawings and watercolours at the Lady Lever Art Gallery. The delightful works on display included pieces by JMW Turner, David Cox, Peter de Wint, Edward Lear, Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. These illustrated the flowering of the British watercolour school in the 18th century and followed its development through the 19th to the early 20th century.

Through these works visitors could trace the development of William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925), the Bolton- born grocer’s son and wealthy soap manufacturer, as a notable collector of British drawings and watercolours. The exhibition also showcased the additions to the collection made by the Trustees of the Lady Lever Art Gallery after its founder’s death.

Find out more about Masterpiece watercolours and drawings

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Still from 'Ascension', Rikke Lundgreen, 2007, inspired by 'The punishment of lust', Giovanni Segantini, 1891

For their project ‘Changing Places’ the artists Phil Sayers and Rikke Lundgreen made artworks which reinterpreted selected paintings and sculptures in the collections of the Walker and Lady Lever Art Galleries.

19th century images that depict women as passive, submissive objects of male desire are of particular interest to them. Other themes, including gender, identity, myths, ageing and the architecture and ‘power’ of the galleries are also a focus for their work. The artists seek to connect our everyday experiences with precedents from art historical sources.

Find out more about Changing Places

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An exhibition exploring the highly creative and experimental world of Victorian photography including images by some of the most famous names of the period: Julia Margaret Cameron, Lady Hawarden, Roger Fenton, Gustave Le Gray, Peter Emerson, Robert Howlett and BB Turner. The images record the people and places of a very different era; intense, haunting and romantic. Other images evoke the world of painting in their composition and style, with arresting landscapes.

The exhibition is a collaboration with the V&A, London.

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A special showing of the paintings, drawings and etchings of James Ensor (1860-1949) on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent. Described as the most original Belgian artist of the 19th century, James Ensor painted around 1880-85 in a style fashionable amongst the modernists of the day.

Find out more about Masquerade: the work of James Ensor (1860-1949)

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The music room, Thornton Manor, 1903 (detail). Reproduced by permission of English Heritage.NMR (BL17551)

To celebrate Year of Heritage, some of Liverpool and Wirral’s lost Victorian and Edwardian mansions were shown in this stunning photographic exhibition. Twenty-five photographs by Harry Bedford Lemere (1864-1944) gave a rich insight into the houses of local merchants at the time, including the home of Lord Leverhulme himself, Thornton Manor.

This exhibition was organised in collaboration with English Heritage (National Monuments Record).

Find out more about Merchant Palaces

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Objects of Desire is an exhibition with a difference. Visitors can view an ever-changing selection of beautiful objects, which are available to purchase.  This wonderful display showcases contemporary crafts by designers who work with ceramics, jewellery, glass, metal and textiles.

It is the first collaborative exhibition between National Museums Liverpool and the Bluecoat Display Centre, Liverpool.  It is also the first selling exhibition at the Lady Lever Art Gallery and a new venture for this venue which has a fascinating collection of historic decorative and fine art.

All the exhibitors are from or are based in the north of England, most of them currently exhibit and sell at the Bluecoat, in addition to many other galleries both nationally and internationally. Between them they have collected many prizes and awards for their creations.

Find out more about Objects of Desire

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Norman Parkinson: Portraits in Fashion

Norman Parkinson was a dazzling fashion photographer who worked on the British edition of Harper's Bazaar, as well as contributing to many publications such as Vogue, Queen, and Town & Country. His work was famous for its liveliness, spontaneity and humour, and for his creative use of outdoor locations. Born in 1913, Parkinson became a photographer's apprentice and at the age of 21 opened his own studio. By the end of his life he had become a household name, the recipient of a CBE, a photographer to the Royal Family, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. This sparkling collection demonstrates Parkinson's ability to capture the essence of the periods in which he worked, in a career that spanned seven decades.

Find out more about Norman Parkinson: Portraits in Fashion

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Study for the North Wind in 'Sponsa de Libano' by Edward Burne-Jones

This exhibition was a rare chance to see 35 exquisite drawings from National Museums Liverpool's collections which are too delicate for permanent display, including works by the leading Pre-Raphaelite artists, Burne Jones, Madox Brown, Holman Hunt, Millais and Rossetti. A recently acquired drawing of Cymon and Iphigenia by Millais was on show for the first time.

Find out more about Pre-Raphaelite Drawings

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Intriguing contemporary sculpture displayed amongst gallery’s treasures. Pete Ellis works with materials from everyday life to produce sculptures that deal with very different ideas. Ordinary objects are used to to project emotive or humorous messages, encouraging us to look again at our own environment.

Newly commissioned work created as a response to the Lady Lever Art Gallery is displayed in the recently refurbished temporary exhibition area. Taking inspiration from the gallery's tapestries, Pete has created The Odd Couple, a nine foot pair of socks on such an epic scale that they will never become separated or lost. Existing pieces are also scattered around the gallery - in unlikely locations. Bronze sausages mounted on an old wardrobe join the gallery’s decorative regency commodes and casts of veterinary gloves and root vegetables inhabit rooms also occupied by Pre-Raphaelite paintings and classical sculpture.

Find out more about Pulling The Lever: Sculpture By Pete Ellis

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A special display highlighting the loan of this important work from the National Gallery in Berlin.

Find out more about Picasso at the Lady Lever Art Gallery - Woman Seated in an Armchair

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An exhibition of paintings illustrating fun and leisure by the Victorian and Edwardian seaside including works by Walter Sickert and Philip Wilson Steer.

Find out more about Beside the Seaside: the British Impressionists

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The year 2005 marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. This picture- in-focus event at the Lady Lever Art Gallery will celebrate the life and times of Lord Nelson, the hero of that great campaign, especilaly his love affair with the famous local beauty, Emma Hamilton.

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The first major exhibition to recognize the Stuckists, the group founded in 1999 by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish, which has subsequently become an international art movement. Stuckism marks the birth of 'Remodernism' - "a renewal of spirituality and meaning in art, culture and society". The Stuckists oppose 'Postmodernism' and conceptual art, famously campaign against the Turner Prize and declare painting as the radical medium of self-discovery: "The Stuckist paints pictures because painting pictures is what matters."

This Walker & Lady Lever exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to make up their own mind about this provocative new figurative art and features over 250 paintings - eighteen of them at Lady Lever Art Gallery.

The Lady Lever will also have the first major national display of photographs by The Stuckist Photographers, whose work carries the Stuckist ethos into another medium. They were founded in 2003 by Andy Bullock and Larry Dunstan, because Dunstan asked, “Is there a place for photography in Stuckism?” The four photographers featured are Andy Bullock, Larry Dunstan, Charles Thomson and Wolf Howard. 

Part of the Liverpool Biennial 2004.

Find out more about The Stuckists Punk Victorian

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A display of drawings from the gallery''s collections will be on show in the education room to coincide with the Big Draw event.

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This display of over 20 works highlights how local Liverpool artist, Daniel Alexander Williamson, was influenced by visionary painter JMW Turner.

Find out more about In the Haze: watercolours by Turner and Williamson

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A small themed display of ceramics from National Museums Liverpool's decorative art collections: 'Monkey Business', 'Wild & Wonderful', 'On the Farm'. The show has been especially designed to appeal to the family audience. It is an ideal opportunity to introduce younger visitors to the wonderful collections looked after by National Museums Liverpool.

Find out more about Animal Magic

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Victorian Life is a small display of watercolours, prints, photographs and original Victorian dolls from National Museums Liverpool's collections. A newly acquired work, St John's Market by popular local artist Samuel Austin, is on show for the first time. Images of shopping, leisure and play during the nineteenth century reveal both the romanticized ideals and harsh realities of everyday Victorian living.

Find out more about Victorian Life

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22 pots from the decorative art collection, highlighting sumptuous glazes from the turn of the century. In shapes and colours complementing the home interiors developed by William Morris and other craftsmen of the period, these experimental glazes made a fashionable alternative to the mass-produced ceramic wares of the 19th century. Art directors, chemists and potters played an important role in developing this kind of pottery from 1870s to 1920s.

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14 watercolours by Robert Anning Bell and his contemporaries - artists closely associated with the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century. The display features two recent Walker acquisitions and works by Edward Frampton, Cayley Robinson and Charles Ricketts, Herbert and Frances MacNair, one of which is entitled 'Love in a Mist'.

Find out more about Love in a Mist

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An exceptional opportunity to see some of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpieces from the Royal Collection. The ten drawings show the range of Leonardo's interests and include anatomical, botanical and religious subjects as well as maps and studies for military innovations.

Find out more about Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci from the Royal Collection