The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

We enjoyed our visit to the Whitworth. The main building is Grade II listed, built between 1895 and 1900 in a free Jacobean style. It consists of two storeys and a basement. In 2013, the gallery closed for refurbishment and re-opened in 2015, transformed so that it doubled its exhibition spaces, and opened itself to its surrounding park.

The development includes expanded gallery areas, a learning studio, study centre and an art garden and cafe. Developers constructed a glass, stainless steel and brick extension consisting of two wings which extend into Whitworth park from the back of the gallery building. The wings are connected by a glass promenade.

The gallery has notable collections of watercolours, sculptures, wallpapers and textiles. Some of the exhibitions at the Whitworth are made up from works in the permanent collection. In order to ensure proper conservation of the artworks the Whitworth does not have any artworks on permanent display.

Bernard Schottlander, Terminal, 1964

It was lunchtime by the time we arrived, so the first thing we did go to the cafe to have some lunch.

It's a fabulous space, 

and everyone can enjoy great views of the park

There were four temporary exhibitions on so after a delicious lunch we started viewing the art

Views of the park are available from a lot of the modern extension galleries

There was an exhibition of textiles by Sally Craven

and a lot more, including, Nude Woman, Peter Lanyon, (gouache, pen and ink, pencil and black chalk)

Sybil Marjorie Atteck, Althea McNish, (oil on masonite)

When we finished with the exhibitions we went for a walk around the park

where it is possible to get a good view of the outside of the building

the cafe

a silver tree

another view of the cafe

a good view of the length of the building, the marriage of the old and the new

Michael Lyons, Phalanx, 1977, (painted steel)

and we slowly made our way to the front of the building