For a simple, pleasurable and often free way to come in from the cold on a winter’s day, it’s hard to beat a visit to one of Britain’s huge range of museums and art galleries. With over 2500 to choose from, there’s sure to be one for every interest, age or attention span in your household.
And 2017 promises to be an extra-ordinary year for museum lovers.
If you’re in London, why not start at the top, literally? The new Tate Modern’s recent expansion added ten stories and multiple galleries of cutting edge design, event and display space. An awe-inspiring place to begin is its 10th floor open viewing gallery, with panoramic views of the city’s skyline and the River Thames below. Entry to the Tate remains free, although you really won’t want to miss ticketed shows like the retrospective of American mixed media innovator, Robert Rauschenberg, and upcoming displays of 20th century Italian masters, sculptor Alberto Giacometti and painter Amedeo Modigliani.
You don’t need to be ‘radical’ to enjoy Tate Modern‘s Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection. Sir Elton has been passionately collecting photographs for 25 years, hanging them in every nook, cranny and wall of his Atlanta, Georgia home. This show treats you to roomfuls of gems from his 2000-item collection, one of the largest private collections in the world, and is a chance to see the best of American and world photography, by pioneers and innovators like Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Man Ray, each of whom helped change the way we see. Start your visit with the show’s introductory film, in which Sir Elton speaks with honesty and warmth on why he collects, how he loves living in a house covered with wall-to-wall photographs and why he’s so keen to share his collection with us.
Down the river at Tate Britain, David Hockney’s 80th birthday is celebrated with a major show. From portraits and images of LA swimming pools to his Yorkshire landscapes, drawings on the iPad, and photography, this is a rare chance to see a lifetime of Hockney’s unforgettable works in one place. Opening in April, the first exhibition dedicated to Queer British Art showcases the rich diversity of LGBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, queer) visual art created during the oppressive 100 years before UK law partially de-criminalised male homosexuality.
There’s still time to dig out those bellbottoms, fringed leather waistcoats and Twiggy wigs and make your way to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s “You say you want a Revolution? Records & Rebels 1966-1970”. If you, your parent or, indeed, grandparent hung around Carnaby Street, Haight Ashbury or Granny Takes a Trip in the Swinging Sixties, this show will surely blow your mind. Explore the upheaval, explosive sense of freedom and radical changes of the time through music, fashion, film, design and political activism. Revolution is followed by another V&A big bang, the Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains, a multi-sensory journey through Pink Floyd’s universe, from the 1960’s psychedelic scene to the present day.
Recently honoured with the prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year prize, the ever innovative V&A is the world’s greatest museum of art and design. View British, European and Asian fashion, furniture, glass, toys, jewellery and instruments through the ages, and so much more - all exquisitely displayed - and enjoy free activities, special events, late night openings and daily guided tours, including the unique and award-winning LGBTQ tour.
Turning to the many wondrous small museums and galleries, it’s hard to know where to start. No, that’s not entirely true: we’d start with London’s Charles Dickens Museum, in the only remaining home of the belovedVictorian writer and social activist and one of the most intimate and enchanting small museums we know. In this renovated Georgian terraced house in a Bloomsbury back street, you can immerse yourself in the sights and sounds and the living spirit of the man, explore the family home of the great writer, his wife Catherine and several of their 10 children, the furnished rooms where Dickens dined and entertained many famous guests, the working rooms where he wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. From amongst 100,000 treasures in the Museum’s collection, you can view original manuscripts and drawings, his writing desk and more unusual items like a commode (chair with a concealed chamber pot) and hip bath. There’s a cosy and charming cafe´ and walled courtyard garden to sip hot chocolate and sample some enticing cakes. A bonus to discover that the museum’s lovely new director is an American expat and lifelong Dickens aficionado, Dr Cindy Sughrue.
The Dickens Museum is only one masterpiece in London’s Museum Mile. A walk along Museum Mile will provide you with fascinating insights into London past and present, and a chance to discover 13 museums and galleries and their diverse collections. These include Sir John Soane’s Museum, the Foundling Museum, Hunterian Museum of Surgery, the Cartoon Museum and the British Museum.
Amongst the many other small but perfectly- formed gallery gems, we highly recommend the International Slavery Museum, Liverpool, telling the history of the transatlantic slave trade through stories of resilience and resistance; the Galleries of Justice Museum, Nottingham; Wales’ Dylan Thomas Centre and Big Pit National Coal Museum, with its astounding underground tour. The delightful American Museum, housed in an 18th-century manor outside Bath, is the only museum of Americana outside the USA. Our favourite small museums in Scotland include Edinburgh’s Museum of Childhood and the People’s Story.
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Image: A warm welcome, Charles Dickens Museum, London, photo courtesy Michael Barrett, the Press Office
Article by Judith Schrut, email Judith at judith0777@gmail.com