Full steam ahead for Lakeland Arts Trust treasures

6:26pm Tuesday 8th January 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Abbot Hall Art Gallery is one of the North's artistic gems.

I really love going around the Kendal gallery, soaking up the creative treasures.

Equally, I enjoy browsing the wall-to-wall elegance of Blackwell Arts and Craft House, which overlooks Windermere.

Now, Edward King has extended his artistic empire from the galleries of Lakeland Arts Trust's Kendal and Bowness art houses (not forgetting the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry at the Abbot Hall site) to embrace Windermere Steamboat Museum.

Will that fit into the framework of the trust as well as the other three?

Trust director Mr King and his fellow trustees seem to think so.

Edward was undaunted by the challenge of acquiring the historic steamboat site for the trust, and more or less managed to slip the final piece of the financial jigsaw into place in March 2007.

As the New Year dawns and the choppy waters of negotiating the deal have been successfully navigated, Edward and his ever enthusiastic and adventurous crew - including new steamboat curator Stuart Ross - are preparing to set sail on an exciting period in the trust's history.

As Edward tells me "We hope to develop the new site at Bowness into a world-class complex, in what is surely one of the most beautiful positions anywhere in England.

"And as part of the preparations for this complicated and onerous task, we have had a major restructuring of staff and are now in the final stages of assembling a team with exceptional talent and experience to meet the challenges ahead.

"As well as saving a vital part of Windermere's heritage, we also see this as a way of strengthening the trust for the future, so that we can continue to develop our core' artistic activities.

"Another strand to the restructuring that has been taking place is a refocussing of our artistic programme to a wider, more diverse audience, and especially towards young people.

"Galleries are obviously a vital resource for those studying art at school and in further education.

"It is not, however, artists, designers and architects who will determine our artistic and cultural landscape, but those who commission them.

"Artists may create wonderful works of art, but without galleries no one will see them. Composers may write beautiful music, but without orchestras and concert halls no one will hear it. And who will determine how much to spend on the key buildings which are the landmarks of our cities and towns, and who will select the designs?

"Not the architects but, again, those who commission them.

"It will be those who are not studying art who will define our cultural landscape; politicians, lawyers, accountants, chief executives, entrepreneurs, even footballers and pop stars, several of whom are now significant collectors of art."

Education is one of Edward's priorities and points out that, over the coming years, Lakeland Arts Trust will be hoping to excite an interest in art in all young people.

"Schools are restricted by the demands of the National Curriculum, and the arts tend to have a low priority once GCSEs start, unless they are a chosen option'.

"It will be an enormous challenge, but we are determined to use the important collection and exhibition programme that we have created within the trust to try to realise this aim.

"And we will start with a significant new initiative aimed at young people when we re-open after the Christmas break, as we start a major new exhibition from Tate Britain, which we are bringing to Kendal."

The exhibition opens at Abbot Hall Art Gallery on January 18 and features the work of Prunella Clough, regarded as one of the most interesting and significant British painters of the post war period, who devoted her career to finding beauty in unconsidered aspects of the urban and industrial landscape.

She died at the age of 80 in 1999, the same year that she won the Jerwood Painting Prize.

Meanwhile, at Blackwell there will be two exhibitions running from February 5 - Michael Cardew: Ceramics from the Winchcombe Period (1926-1939) and At Table, Part 1: Contemporary Ceramic Tableware.

So, there's plenty coming up to please the eye for art lovers.

For further details telephone Abbot Hall on 01539-722464, Blackwell on 015394-46139.