To commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, Salford Art Club’s 2014 annual exhibition at the Salford museum and Art Gallery has been entitled ‘a Century of Change’.
The club was established back in 1953 and amongst those who have exhibited with the club in that time, the names of LS Lowry, Harold Riley and Edith Le Breton cannot fail to be spotted.
Several works attract the eye. Dorothy Pointon’s ‘has anything changed’, winner of the John Clare award, showing a homeless man sitting on the pavement whilst twenty first century humanity passes him by. A child stops to stare and is pulled away by its mother, almost embarrassed to look whilst another walks past shopping bags in one hand a mobile phone in the other, oblivious to the man’s plight and lost in the vagaries of this modern connected world.
Jayne Gosnall’s ‘the three graces’ pirouette on a disabled parking space in front of a ninety nine pence store whilst a pair of magpies stand guard.There is Ray Collier’s haunting sunrise over Patricroft and Peter Newman’s ‘Who needs toys’ picturing two boys pushing a rubber tyre along an empty cobbled street.
Other award winners include Ray Collier for his smoky workshops which wins the Geoffrey Key award whilst David Coggins oil painting of Salford Quays ‘silent cargoes’ wins the Janet Berwich Award, its haunted depiction of a once booming port which now stands derelict and dilapidated, is a very powerful image along with Carol Parkes illustration of the Salford Quay’s cranes, sadly now taken down, victims of council cutbacks last year.
War and its futility also feature. George Lee’s More Poppies, More Wars depicts a scene of Remembrance Sunday outside the Old Fire Station and Tom Ward’s ‘A Century of Mourning’, a series of poppies surrounded by butterflies with a reminder of the wars that still blight the world
The final painting features William Robert’s Munitions Factory painted in 1940, loaned from the Salford Art Gallery. This powerful depiction of a factory manufacturing weapons was painted as a reminder of the industrial slaughter that was at the centre of so much of the First World War.
the exhibition runs until Sunday 11th May at the Salford Art Gallery and museum
Peel Park
The Crescent
Salford
M5 4WU
Telephone:
0161 778 0800
Email:
salford.museum@scll.co.uk
Opening times
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: 10:00 am – 4:45 pm
Wednesday: 10:00 am – 4:45 pm
Thursday: 10:00 am – 4:45 pm
Friday: 10:00 am – 4:45 pm
Saturday: 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Sunday: 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Unless otherwise stated, this facility is closed on bank holidays.
I would like to see more paintings by Carol Parkes. I wanted to buy the painting The Washing Line but it as been sold. I would like to buy a print of the Washing Line if possible my wife and I think the painting is wonderful hope you can help me
Kind Regards Richard Hayes