Yorkshire has a long and storied history of art and artists. Its landscapes have inspired a plethora of mediums and artists, from Barbara Hepworth's sculptures to William Turner's landscape paintings. This exhibition will highlight a mix of old and new Yorkshire art and artists, from the more well-known Modernist Henry Moore to children's illustrator Alice Goyder - with a generous, colourful helping of their works on the side!
Julius Caeser Ibbetson (1759-1817)
According to his memoir, Ibbetson was born by caesarean section after his mother slipped on ice - and subsequently named for it! He grew up in Farnley Moor, Leeds, as the second son of a Yorkshire clothier. He kick-started his career in London in the 1780s by exhibiting at the Royal Academy. He was even draughtsman (illustrator) to a Colonel on the first ever British embassy to Beijing in 1787, making watercolours of Chinese plants and animals along the way!
His main focuses were nature and urban landscapes, as illustrated here with his paining of the view from Leeds Bridge (left) and study of a dead starling bird (above). Later in life, he moved to the Lake District and was close friends with Lake Poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor.
Shiraaz Ali
Shiraaz Ali is a visual artist and architect living and working in Bradford. He works centrally with oils on canvas and murals - as seen here with 'One Alhaya' (right) and his 2021 vertical garden and murals at Sandhurst Block at Whitehill & Bordon Town Centre (below).
In 2021, Ali was appointed as one of three Artists-In-Residence at Bradford City Hall, designing a mosaic paving art piece connecting City Hall and Centenary Square that celebrates the diverse cultures of the city.
"The intention through all my mediums of work is to capture fleeting, intangible and metaphysical moments and suspend them in time."
William Turner (1775-1851)
Born to a lower-middle-class family in London, Turner was an artistic child prodigy. His father was enthusiastically supportive of his son's talents - selling his paintings for a few shillings each in his barber shop window by 1786. He was only 14 when he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Arts, and 15 when he first exhibited work there. Respect and admiration for his work continued throughout his life - though his paintings grew to sell for far more than a few shillings!
Turner's work focused on natural, urban, and marine landscapes. In 1816, Turner took a horseback tour of Yorkshire which produced a multitude of paintings and sketches - including these paintings of Leeds (background) and Kirkstall Abbey (above).
Jessie Leong
Leong is an adventure and portrait photographer working from Sheffield. Born in the North but sequestered to the far less mountainous South as a child, her studies eventually brought her back to Yorkshire and its outdoors. She launched her career as Leeds Arts University's 2018 Creative-In-Residence - winning the Judge's Special Mention Award for her first short film 'Banana Skin' at the BMC Women in Adventure competition the same year!
"I focus on telling the stories of extraordinary people and their relationship with the environment, capturing their enjoyment and wonder of being in the outdoors."
David Hockney
According to a 2011 poll of 1,000 British artists, David Hockney is Britain's most influential artist. Born in Bradford in 1937, Hockney studied at the Bradford College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. After graduating in 1962, Hockney moved between Los Angeles, Paris, and London throughout the 1960s and '70s - often with his then-romantic and now business partner Gregory Evans. In the 1990s, Hockney began to visit Yorkshire to spend time with his mother and eventually settled here to paint the landscapes. This work continued into the new century, resulting in works like Bigger Trees Near Water (2007) which is a 50-panel, 4.6-by-12 meter painting of a copse of trees between Bridlington and York that Hockney donated to the Tate Gallery.
The Leeds Library has its own sample of Hockey's affection for 'bigger' pieces. In 2016, Hockney released David Hockney: A Bigger Book, a 498-page volume that came with its own lectern stand and displays over 60 years of his work. It was £1,750 at the time (and is already worth over £4,000 today), and can be leafed through by members and visitors alike in the New Room!
Alice Goyder (1875-1964)
Goyder was born in Bradford in 1875. She studied art at Bradford School of Art and Louise Jane Jopling's School of Art, winning a silver medal at the Women's Exhibition in 1897. In the early 1910s, she exhibited at the Royal Academy whilst living with her family in Bradford. She published her first illustrated children's book, The Dignity of the Race, in 1894 - and so began her career of publishing children's books featuring anthropomorphized cats!
Her most famous series were the Catland books, which were re-published in the 1970s after her death. She also worked with watercolour, oils, dry point etching, print-making, and woodcarving and was an active member of the Society of Women Artists for over 50 years (1900 – 1953).
Henry Moore (1898-1986)
Born in Castleford, Yorkshire, Moore is famous for his avant-garde sculptures in bronze and stone. Inspired by the human body and natural landscapes, his 'reclining figures' series is particularly well-known and are displayed internationally. After training as a teacher and fighting in the First World War, Moore studied at the Leeds School of Art and the London Royal College of Art. In the Second World War he gained some fame for his pencil drawings of people sheltering during the Blitz, and by the 1950s was receiving commissions for large sculptures from a plethora of international patrons.
Moore was an avid socialist who grew up in a family struggling with poverty, and was uncomfortable with his growing wealth - so in 1977 established the Henry Moore Foundation, which funds the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds.
Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)
Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Hepworth studied at Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art in the 1920s. A brief stint living in Rome with her then-husband and fellow sculptor John Skeaping inspired her early work before both moved back to London in the 1930s. Throughout the 1930s and '40s, Hepworth moved into exploring abstract art through both her sculpture and drawing. During the Second World War, Hepworth, then-husband Ben Nicholson, and their triplets evacuated to St. Ives in Cornwall - where Hepworth lived for the rest of her life. Her work grew in prominence internationally throughout the 1950s and '60s, with a series of traveling exhibitions and gallery shows confirming her place amongst the most influential modernist sculptors of the era.
John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)
Born in Leeds in 1836, Grimshaw began his art career at 24, when he left his job as a Great Northern Railway clerk to become a painter. His first exhibition was in 1862, under the patronage of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. His career took off in the 1870s, and he rented a second home, Castle-by-the-Sea in Scarborough. He is best known now for his night-time urban landscapes (see below) and use of light. He was fascinated by photography, and sometimes used camera lenses to project scenes onto canvases for painting.
He died in October 1893 of tuberculosis and is buried in Woodhouse Cemetery (now St. George's Fields) in Leeds.
Yorkshire Art, Yorkshire Artists
We have only been able to give you a taste of the huge array of talented Yorkshire artists and the art they create. From tangible to visual mediums and beyond, Yorkshire's rolling landscapes and vast chorus of peoples has inspired great and thoughtful art - and will for many years to come! For more on Yorkshire artists working today, explore these groups:
With Thanks To:
Exhibition: Jane Riley and Niimi Day Gough
Digital: Niimi Day Gough
Bibliography:
Images:
Jan Willemsen, 'Alice Goyder Holiday in Catland' (2017), Shiraaz Ali, 'Not Just Hockney Artists: ALI, Shiraaz' (2021), Jessie Leong, 'Assynt & Sutherland' and 'Iceland', Christopher Simon Sykes, 'Hockney: The Biography, Volume 2 1975-2012' (London: Century Random House, 2014), Donald Hall, 'Henry Moore: The Life and Work of a Great Sculptor' (London: Victor Gollancz Limited, 1966), Jane Sellars, 'Atkinson Grimshaw: Painter of Moonlight' (Harrogate: The Mercer Art Gallery, 2011), Penelope Curtis and Alan G. Wilkinson, 'Barbara Hepworth: A Retrospective' (London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1995), David Hill, 'Turner and Leeds: Image of Industry' (Leeds: Northern Arts Publications, 2009). All other images courtesy of The Leeds Library.
Information:
The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection, 'David Hockney (The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection)' (2022), David Blayney Brown, 'Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851' (2012), Suffolk Artists Database, 'GOYDER, Alice Kirkby' (2013), The Tate, 'Atkinson Grimshaw 1836–1893' (2015).