National Museums Liverpool (NML) will reopen the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Sudley House and Seized! – The Border & Customs uncovered on 30 September, meaning all of its venues will be open to the public for the first time since lockdown began.
The Lady Lever’s official opening will be followed on 2 October with German Revolution Expressionist Prints – a powerful exhibition portraying a chaotic post-First World War Germany featuring works from some of the twentieth century’s most renowned artists including Picasso, Kollwitz, Munch, Schiele and Beckmann.
Sudley House will also feature the new exhibition Home and Away, opening with the venue on 30 September featuring oil paintings of both foreign and local views. The foreign views all come from George Holt’s collection, housed at Sudley and inspired by his family’s interest in travel. There will also be a range of views of Liverpool and the local area in the 19th century, while the Holts lived at Sudley. The ‘home’ views largely come from the Walker Art Gallery’s collection. The display will include two works by John Atkinson Grimshaw as well as Jean Leon Gerome, Thomas Creswick, Frederick Goodall, Charles Trevor Prescott and Eduardo de Martino.
Both venues will be open from Wednesday – Sunday, 10am –5pm (closed Mondays and Tuesdays).
The Seized! gallery in the Merseyside Maritime Museum will also reopen on 30 September. The gallery tells the intriguing story of smuggling and contraband and is a partnership between NML, Border Force and HM Revenue and Customs. The gallery holds one of the most important collections of its type anywhere in the world and looks at the ingenious and often dangerous world of smuggling, prohibited goods and concealment. Also opening will be the Archives Centre at the Maritime Museum, which houses an extensive collection of maritime and slavery books and documents spanning three centuries. (Access by appointment only)
In line with being COVID-secure, NML has implemented changes to offer a safe and enjoyable visit for all, including pre-booked timed entry, mandatory face coverings for visitors, enhanced cleaning protocols and social distancing measures. These measures are in operation across all NML venues for the safety, comfort and reassurance of visitors and staff.
Further Information about the exhibitions:
German Revolution Expressionist Prints
2 October 2020 – February 2021
Opening at the Lady Lever Art Gallery on 2 October, German Revolution Expressionist Prints is a powerful exhibition portraying a chaotic post-First World War Germany and featuring works from some of the 20th century’s most renowned artists including Picasso, Kollwitz, Munch, Schiele and Beckmann.
This monumental group of works juxtaposes the very different responses artists had to the turmoil of Germany’s revolution in the period 1900 to 1925. Some turned their backs on the physical destruction and looked inwards. Kokoschka, Schiele, Schmidt-Rottluff, Nolde, Pechstein, Heckel, Dix, and Corinth all made prints exploring human stories as an antidote to the disaster of the war.
Home and Away September 30 2020 – to TBC
Opening to the public on 30th September, Sudley House will feature the new exhibition Home and Away, opening with the venue on 30 September featuring oil paintings of both foreign and local views. The foreign views all come from George Holt’s collection, housed at Sudley and inspired by his family’s interest in travel. There will also be a range of views of Liverpool and the local area in the 19 th century from the period in which the Holts lived at Sudley. The ‘home’ views largely come from the Walker Art Gallery’s collection. The display will include two works by John Atkinson Grimshaw as well as Jean-Léon Gérôme, Thomas Creswick, Frederick Goodall, Charles Trevor Prescott and Eduardo de Martino.
Holt began collecting around the late 1860s; by 1884 when the family moved to Sudley he already had over 200 paintings, drawings and prints. The display gives us a view into the collecting habits of a group of Liverpool merchants who purchased British paintings in the second half of the 19th century. Holt’s is the only collection to survive intact, thanks to his daughter Emma who bequeathed it to the city of Liverpool in 1944.
NML is committed to becoming more transparent about the origins of its collections. The labels that accompany some of the paintings in Home and Away detail how many of the buildings and areas of the city are strongly associated with Liverpool’s involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. An example is the Town Hall which appears in two paintings on display. The building has carvings on the facade which depict African people alongside elephants. This is a reference to the wealth Liverpool obtained from the African continent through the exploitation of its people and resources. It is also noted that Bold Street, painted by Charles Trevor Prescott, was named after the prominent slave trader Jonas Bold.
