We Saw Walsall

CriAn Haziran 01, 2022

To round off our break, before a busy week we decided to go to another exhibition, setting off we thought we were probably going to end up at MIMA, however we instead ended up at The New Art Gallery Walsall. I confess to knowing not very much about this place, other than the football team play at the Bescot Stadium (although I think it has a sponsorship name now) and that the town is famous for leather, I know that because the football team are known as The Saddlers. Please forgive me my ignorance in all other matters relating to the town.

We also didn't really know anything about the gallery, other than the two temporary exhibitions we went to see. So we were blown away with what we discovered,

gallery exterior

We went for a curator talk about the Eva Rothschild to see Divine, Oliver Jones, what I was ignorant of was the huuuge amount of Jacob Epstein works on display *squeeeeeak*. The Garman-Ryan collection was formed by Jacob Epstein's widow, Kathleen Garman and their friend Sally Ryan and donated to the people of Walsall as Kathleen was from Wednesbury. Tate are currently in partnership with the collection and 16 works from Tate are currently featured in with the permanent collection. So if you like Picasso, Gainsborough, Degas, Modigliani, Lucian Freud, Bernard Leach or John Constable there will certainly be something there for you!

As you might know by now, I don't like taking pictures of the artworks, but look how amazing the gallery is! It is a fabulous use of space, not too much is revealed as you move between rooms, it's a tall but fairly compact building, lots of stairs but you can hear Noddy Holder* speaking to you if you choose to take the lift.

And as if all this wasn't enough, there were lots of Diwali celebrations taking place, we missed a fair bit of it due to hearing the talk but we did get to see some dancing in the foyer.

Anyone fortunate to live closer to this place than we do (it's ust over two hours in the car from here) should thank their lucky stars to have such a fantastic, free resource available to them. We'll be back next year.

Should you be so inclined, here's a video from Bob and Roberta Smith in and around the gallery