Leeds Museums and Galleries Review 2013/14

You’ll be surprised when you see what we’ve been up to

inspiring Highlights April 2013 - March 2014

Hello! Pleased to Meet You Those of us fortunate enough to work in museums delight in them as places of inspiration.

Inspiration comes from our fantastic collections, arguably amongst the best in the English regions. We have some ‘great stuff’ – from Rembrandt etchings displayed at Temple Newsam to our Harrison clock now at Leeds City Museum where its place in world changing technology is told.

But it is more than “treasures” which inspire, many of our less glamorous objects embed stories and trigger responses in our visitors, whether patients visiting our display at the Bexley Wing in St James’ Hospital or people reliving their experiences of the Leeds Childrens’ Day at Abbey House Museum through photos, objects and oral history.

Inspiring all ages through exhibitions and events is crucial to us, a highlight from last year was undoubtedly Through the Magic Mirror: Anthony Browne which brought the imaginative world of the children’s illustrator to a child-friendly exhibition at Leeds City Museum which delighted young and old alike.

2013-14 saw our community team expanded across all our sites with the support of Arts Council funding.

The energy of these new staff and the enthusiasm of the many groups they have worked with is truly inspirational.

Partnerships with individuals and groups revealed through the case studies here show how we are engaging with and drawing on the energy of our community.

People really do inspire other people!

Photographer: Mark Hemingway

“We hope you will find that our highlights report inspires you to connect with and support our future work.”

Catherine Hall

Head of Site Development

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Our sites

Step back in time and wander the beautifully created authentic Victorian streets for a glimpse of life in 19th century Leeds. There’s plenty to see and do at this lively, interactive and family friendly museum. www.leeds.gov.uk/abbeyhouse

Home to one of the best collections of British art outside London. It showcases a wealth of art by well-known artists and presents a dynamic temporary exhibitions programme. www.leeds.gov.uk/artgallery

A beautiful Edwardian country house with a bird garden, deer park and formal gardens. Lotherton Hall is a treasure trove of arts and crafts with fine collections of paintings, silver, ceramics and beautiful costume galleries. www.leeds.gov.uk/lothertonhall

Once the world’s largest woollen mill, Leeds Industrial Museum presents a fascinating insight into the city’s industrial heritage. Witness the 1920s cinema, steam engines and the spinning mule. www.leeds.gov.uk/armleymills

Four floors of interactive and exciting galleries. Come face to face with the Leeds tiger, step into Ancient Worlds to meet Nesyamun, the Leeds mummy, and dig for fossils in the Life on Earth gallery. Changing special exhibitions, as well as weekly family friendly clubs and activities are held. www.leeds.gov.uk/citymuseum

One of the country’s great historic houses and estates, Temple Newsam is a stunning Tudor-Jacobean mansion set within 1,500 acres of beautiful parkland which includes a working farm.

The house offers an ever-changing programme of exhibitions, guided tours and activities for all ages. www.leeds.gov.uk/templenewsamhouse

One of the best preserved Cistercian monasteries in the country. Feel a true sense of the past as you stroll through its tranquil grounds, surrounded by stunning parkland on the banks of the River Aire. Find out more about this famous Leeds landmark in the Visitor Centre at the abbey. www.leeds.gov.uk/kirkstallabbey

From elephant skulls to a Medieval log boat, this purpose-built store and conservation facility houses objects from Leeds Museums and Galleries’ collections which are not on permanent display. Visitors can discover many more treasures with regular behind the scenes tours and family activities. www.leeds.gov.uk/discoverycentre

A fully restored working watermill in a riverside setting. See the power of water as two huge waterwheels drive the mill.

Visit the blacksmith’s workshop, manager’s house and discover all about life on this attractive island which is rich in wildlife. www.leeds.gov.uk/thwaitemills

We are part of Leeds City Council and sit within Culture and Sport. Our wider Directorate is City Development.

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Within our department we have four core teams which are: 1. Site Development: ensuring the high quality visitor experience 2. Collections: caring for and developing the historic collections 3. Learning and Audience Development: enhancing life-long learning 4. Commercial: managing and maximising income generation.

Thanks to our Arts Council funding we are able to complement these core departments with other more outward facing teams including Audience Development, Partnerships and Community Engagement.

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Our Strategic Aims Manage our collections, sites and information to the highest possible standards and maximise their impact

Key achievements: • 18 exhibitions held across the service, seen by a record 1.25million visitors, including ‘Art and Life’ at Leeds Art Gallery, which toured to partner galleries Kettle’s Yard and Dulwich Picture Gallery, ‘Rembrandt Etchings’ at Temple Newsam and ‘A Snapshot of Yorkshire’ at Abbey House Museum.

• Hidden treasures from the collections displayed for the first time – the Harrison long case clock and the extinct Moa skeleton both made their debuts at Leeds City Museum.

• New permanent galleries in production – Voices of Asia at Leeds City Museum and Tailoring at Leeds Industrial Museum.

• Published ‘Director’s Choice’ a personal guide to the collections by Head of Leeds Museums and Galleries, John Roles.

• ‘Full Steam Ahead’ has seen us revealing our locomotive and engineering collections and starting a programme of restoration and preservation.

04 Our Strategic Aims

Amassed over almost 200 years, our collections are recognised nationally for their quality and significance.

Four of our disciplines have ‘Designated’ status – Fine and Decorative Arts, Natural Sciences and Industrial History.

The others (Archaeology, Numismatics, World Cultures, Leeds History, Dress and Textiles) are close rivals in their quality, breadth and importance. Our primary goal is to provide imaginative and meaningful access to our collections for all ages, abilities and backgrounds and to reflect our city and the people within it.

Spanning the Modern at Leeds Art Gallery

Skin Deep; Getting to Grips with Bird Skins Leeds Museums and Galleries’ bird study skin collection contains thousands of beautiful, unique, data-rich and awe-inspiring specimens, which we sought to care for more effectively and use more widely.

Through funding awarded by the Arts Council England Designated Development Fund, we have improved the storage and documentation of our collection. Moreover, we have delivered a range of innovative visitor programmes and utilised digital media, enabling our users to engage with traditionally hard-to-use but fascinating specimens. This project has increased both physical and intellectual access to the skins for our diverse audiences.

Ben Nicholson, Cornish Port, 1930, Kettles Yard, University of Cambridge.

Last year saw three very different exhibitions held at Leeds Art Gallery.

Becky Beasley (b.1975) is an artist who lives and works in St Leonards on Sea, UK. Spring Rain brought together a new body of work, as well as a display of Charles Jones photographs and work from the Leeds Collection selected by Beasley to reflect her particular interests in still life and the domestic. This exhibition provided visitors to the gallery with a chance to see works from the Leeds Collection alongside a significant body of work by a younger artist, showing in Leeds for the first time.

Art and Life (1920-1931) brought together a group of artists and explored the artistic partnership between Ben and Winifred Nicholson. It showed the ways in which they inspired each other, their artistic friendships with

Christopher Wood and the potter William Staite Murray, and looked at the way in which they all responded to Alfred Wallis.

Accompanied by a substantial publication and lively lunchtime talks, this exhibition offered visitors the chance to see works that had previously not been exhibited together before.

Another Condition of Sculpture drew upon work made by one the UK’s most important artists over the last 50 years, but through the prism of new and recent work. Showing ceramics, paintings, photographs, films and drawings it introduced McLean’s work to the audience and provided new perspectives by creating surprising junctures between earlier and new work. The exhibition also presented a new opera, ‘The Changing Room’ in the dramatic setting of the Tiled Hall.

Biology Curatorial Trainee Over the last year Leeds Museums and Galleries have hosted Heather Mikhail on a traineeship with the Natural Sciences staff at Leeds Discovery Centre.

This training opportunity has given Heather the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects, from the coordination of loans to other museums, curating a display about bear skulls for Leeds Discovery Centre and putting together an exhibition on Small Pleasures in the Bexley Wing at St James’ Hospital.

While developing the outreach display for St James’ Hospital, Heather had the chance to really get to know Leeds’ varied collections. Another element that Heather was actively involved with was the Natural History Roadshow, where she led on showing natural history specimens to the public, took specimens into galleries, and created a showcase of specimens that were all linked to Victorian contributors to the museum.

Heather said…

“It has been a great year, and this traineeship has given me an excellent insight into the workings of a museum.”

Rembrandt Etchings at Temple Newsam House

Our Designated fine art collection holds an important group of original Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn etchings and in 2013/14 a selection of these rare works of art were exhibited in the stunning setting of Temple Newsam House.

The exhibition ran for nine months split over two parts; the first of which brought together a selection of Rembrandt’s portrait and figure studies whilst the second showcased Rembrandt’s biblical prints.

This display allowed for the Rembrandt collection to undergo important conservation work enabling better access and will improve and safeguard the collection for the future. Both the programme of events and the exhibition were well received by the Temple Newsam audiences and had a really positive impact on the number of visitors to the House. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 05

Making the Grade with Accreditation We were delighted as a service to receive our new Accreditation award this year. The scheme, administered by Arts Council England, is the UK ‘industry’ standard for museums and galleries defining good practice and identifying agreed standards in organisational health, collections management and user engagement.

Even for a large service such as ours the requirements are significant and the scheme has been considerably extended to encompass the user experience and learning provision demanding a reassessment of all that we do and the systems we have in place, so it is reassuring to know that we continue to fully meet the mark.

Inspiring Learning with Picture Lending This year saw our new partnership between Picture Lending at Leeds Art Gallery and the Artemis School Loans Service making waves in classrooms across the region.

Through this collaboration we have radically reshaped the form of school art loans within the Leeds area which has had the immediate and positive effect of tripling the number of schools borrowing pictures from the Artemis collection. Furthermore, this relationship has led to the rapid increase to the numbers of works of art within the Picture Lending collection and seen vital conservation work carried out on the Artemis collection.

At the heart of this partnership is our joint ambition to increase the impact that original works of art can have in the school environment and how art can act as a catalyst to improve teaching.

Looking ahead, this partnership is set to blossom in the late summer when we’ll deliver a programme of continual professional development events for both primary and secondary schools that will help to foster and enable cross-curricular teaching activities with just one picture.

06 Our Strategic Aims

Hospitality at Kirkstall Abbey

Museum Blog: The Secret Lives of Objects Back in December 2013, work started on the migration of the ‘Secret Lives of Objects’ blog onto the Leeds Museums and Galleries website. This has been a major step in providing a more streamlined look and feel for users, increasing accessibility to the blog as well as contextualising the posts.

Quality research is always at the core of everything we do with collections, which is why we applied to the Arts and Humanities Research Council back in 2010 to fund a PhD student for three years between Leeds Museums and Galleries and the University of Leeds. The chosen student, Richard Thomason, is now in the third year of his PhD researching hospitality at Kirkstall Abbey.

By examining the documentary sources, the standing remains and the archaeological evidence he is exploring how the monks treated guests who stayed at the Abbey and what they did when they were there. The results will show Kirkstall Abbey in a whole new light.

Positioned under the ‘Explore’ section of our website, users can find out what’s going on behind the scenes and discover more about objects across all nine sites of Leeds Museums and Galleries. Making our collections available through new and different outlets such as an informal blog has been a priority for us, not only is it a great resource for our users but it’s playing a big part in our digital media strategy too.

The blog provides valuable content we can share across our social media channels including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

We’re even involved in the latest global phenomenon known as #MusCake over on Twitter, where our bloggers explore the collections through cake!

Pleased to Meet You Daniel Martin Assistant Curator of Industrial History For the past two years I’ve worked as the Assistant Curator of Industrial History at Leeds Industrial Museum and Thwaite Mills Watermill.

Being responsible for such a large and diverse collection across two sites, I find myself working on a wide variety of projects across the service. One a little closer to home is the ‘Full Steam Ahead’ project at Leeds Industrial Museum. We’ve spent the last 18 months working hard to get our Designated collection of locomotives up to the best possible standards of conservation and display. In some instances this has meant making sure they’re in safe working condition, other times it has meant organising loans for their restoration, and in one instance completely rebuilding a locomotive from bits!

Making sure our infrastructure is in perfect working order is key to moving the collection forward and running the locomotives for the public as often as possible. In the future I’m hopeful we can work with volunteers to help conserve, restore and run our fine collection of industrial rolling stock. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 07

Our Strategic Aims

Deliver high impact and inclusive visitor experiences for an increasingly diverse audience Key achievements: • More major improvements across the service including; new dedicated community gallery at Abbey House Museum, Lotherton Hall interpretation, new car parking at Leeds Industrial Museum and Thwaite Mills and new public toilets at Leeds Art Gallery. • Worked with 3000 individuals from over 80 community organisations, reaching parts of our city and its communities never before reached by our service. • Enhanced audience research is telling us much more about our users and non-users and guiding our programming.

People are at the heart of our priorities.

We are attracting audiences from new locations and communities and many more people are participating in our engagement and volunteering programmes.

We reach a vast audience; 1.25million visitors, 1.5million web visits, 4million visitors to loan venues and 50,000 people in outreach programmes. Our performance represents a third of all local authority museum visits across the Yorkshire and Humber region. Half this large diverse audience comes from Leeds and threequarters from (West) Yorkshire and Humberside.

08 Our Strategic Aims

Quality in our visitor offer

“CSI Discovery” human skeletal remains workshops

All our sites enjoy accreditation under the Visit England VAQAS scheme (Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Scheme).

Initially indignant that soil was being scattered on the clean Education Room floor at Leeds Discovery Centre, it only took our Education Officer, Liz Knight, a few minutes to see the great workshop potential in working with professional osteoarchaeologist Janet Fletcher, who was cleaning the undocumented Human Remains Collection and writing archaeological reports on age, sex and condition.

Making sure that we meet best practice standards as visitor attractions is vital and having the thorough ‘on the ground’ mystery shop of the whole visitor journey from an initial enquiry to leaving the site is invaluable to us. As well as this formal assessment we now offer some of our staff the chance to ‘turn the tables’ and become assessors themselves via our involvement with the Museum Development Yorkshire Visitor Experience Consortia by reviewing other partner museums in the region and offering valuable insights into the visitor experience. All this work is helping us to shape where we prioritise new investment in visitor services, whether that be overhauling our toilets or devising better signage.

A Snapshot of Yorkshire The Snapshot of Yorkshire exhibition and the new community gallery at Abbey House Museum could not have happened without participation by community groups and members of the public.

The exhibition was framed around feedback from an online survey which received over 300 responses and asked “What does Yorkshire mean to you?” The exhibition also featured images from an open photography competition and a youth photography project which both commemorated the bicentenary of the publication of George Walker’s 1814 Costume of Yorkshire prints by asking members of the public to share their pictures of what life is like in Yorkshire today.

We sought permission and used the specimens in a set of evening workshops over 6 weeks. Participants were allowed unprecedented supervised access both to the collection and Janet’s expertise.

We ran the course a second time in September as demand was so great.

“Really enjoyable course!

Brilliant subject and very interesting.

Very knowledgeable tutor …more similar courses please!”

Through the Magic Mirror: The World of Anthony Browne Through the Magic Mirror: The World of Anthony Browne was one of our most popular exhibitions yet, attracting almost 78,000 visitors.

A touring exhibition from Seven Stories, it paired beautiful original artwork and museum objects with immersive and playful environments for families to explore. The accompanying learning programme was equally successful, with over 400 children visiting the exhibition as part of a pre-booked education visit.

What our visitors said:

Childrens’ Day The community gallery opened with a reminiscence-based display about Leeds Children’s Day by members of Bramley Elderly Action (BEA) and Bramley History Society, including the loan of items by the last Queen of Children’s Day (1963).

Singers from BEA were inspired to learn the 1930s song “Floreat Loidis” which they performed in the gallery.

Since opening many more visitors have contributed their memories and photographs to the display.

“Thank you for so many hours of joy for me and my children.”

“A magic exhibition. Thank you.

We are all kids at heart!”

Natural Beauty 2 In January we opened Natural Beauty 2 at Leeds City Museum, showcasing the fantastic results of a public wildlife photography competition.

Open to photographers of all ages and abilities, it attracted over 1000 entries from around the country, and most notably the Leeds and Yorkshire region. At the preview evening we were joined by winners, runners-up and their families and friends to celebrate a fantastic display of artistry and skill. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 09

Our Moa makes its debut In March 2014 we had the pleasure of being able to return our Heavy-footed Moa skeleton to display after half a century’s absence.

This amazing specimen was collected by Leeds City Museum, then the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, in 1868. It was displayed in Philosophical Hall until the building was condemned in the 1960s. The process of resurrection began a couple of years ago with the bones collected together, painstakingly cleaned and the whole bird re-articulated.

We were then able to return it to pride of place in Leeds City Museum – giving it the chance to gaze imperiously at its visiting admirers once again.

Britain’s Got Brains!

The Longitude Act of 1714 was the first government sponsored research and development project and it sought to find a solution to the greatest problem of the 18th century ”Where on Earth are we?” The solution to the Longitude Problem came from a Yorkshire born self-taught materials scientist, John Harrison.

He achieved precision timekeeping to such a degree that he proved that there was an engineering solution to determining time difference, which, because of the rotation of the Earth, is the key to determining longitude.

We have at Leeds Museums and Galleries one of his early precision timekeepers, made, in 1727, in response to the Longitude Act. This highly significant scientific instrument became a high priority for display, with investment to create the interpretation that puts into context the seriousness of the problem, and Harrison’s decades of dedicated research. This permanent display opened at Leeds City Museum in January 2014, in time for the Board of Longitude Project conference, and it complements the displays about navigation and precision timekeeping at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Getting to know our visitors

Improvements to Lotherton Hall Lotherton Hall has seen visitors to the house increase threefold over the last three years.

This followed the abolition of charging on entry to the museum and paying a single fee on arrival to the estate. This has changed the dynamics of the visitor mix dramatically.

How we interpret the house and collection to this wider audience has been completely overhauled. For families we now have a dressing-up room, curiosity cabinets, discovery chests and an interactive screen exploring journeys to other countries that the Gascoigne family visited.

The interpretation now starts outdoors with the gardens, stables, carriages and chapel.

Inside the journey through the house is animated with sounds and smells to help tell the story.

10 Our Strategic Aims

Every year our audience research programme aims to collate more detailed and up to date insight and information about different target audience groups to inform our planning and decision-making.

increased. Overwhelmingly the research also found that 97% of visitors are likely to recommend a visit to friends and family which supports the high levels of visitor satisfaction and compares favourably against regional and national data.

This year we commissioned another annual visitor survey which highlighted that our sites continue to attract a good mix of audiences from different age groups and geographical areas, our visitors continue to be visiting regularly, satisfaction levels remain high and the number of first-time visitors has

As with all our research the information has helped us to target and tailor our marketing activity and site development to our audience’s needs, improve our visitor offer and experiences and inform our community engagement work, funding applications and future research.

Community displays get a facelift Earlier this year Leeds City Museum opened a newly refurbished space at the modern end of the Leeds Story Gallery to better reflect contemporary life in Leeds.

The space now hosts an ongoing programme of changing exhibitions which focus on a range of exciting themes and topics all about Leeds Today. Our vision is to make sure that opportunities for involvement are shared throughout and this investment has increased our capacity to display stories and objects from the diverse communities in the city.

The displays are co-curated by community groups with support from the museum’s curatorial team and may feature a mixture of lent items, objects from our collection and newly created material. The current display showcases some of the contemporary objects collected by young people over the last 4 years for the 2012 Olympics, Leeds Festival and High Street Fashion. There is also a part of the exhibition marking the start of the commemorations for the First World War for Leeds Museums and Galleries, which focuses on both contemporary servicemen and those who fought in earlier conflicts.

Happy Museum Project Launched in April 2011, the Happy Museum Project looks at how museums in the UK can build links between sustainability and wellbeing to leave a legacy of long-term cultural change within their organisations and communities.

In 2013 Kirkstall Abbey was successful in achieving funding from the Happy Museum for a new project called The Happy Abbey.

This aimed to put the local community at the heart of what we do.

The Hedgerow Festival The Hedgerow Festival was a brand new event at Thwaite Mills Watermill, designed to promote the amount of outdoor space and variety of activities possible on Thwaite Island and intended to appeal to adults and children alike.

We worked in partnership with a number of local organisations, some established contacts and some which we reached out to for the first time which enabled us to support local groups to promote themselves, as well as forming new partnerships for future projects at Thwaite.

With the funding we have; • Installed 10 raised beds for growing food • Run a series of workshops for the under-fives including active stories, multi-sensory singing and drumming.

“I loved watching my normally shy two year old doing actions. It was great getting the children moving” • Created sculpture with adults with learning difficulties • Run healthy eating sessions with targeted families in the local children’s centre • Investigated aspirations for a happy Leeds with community groups in partnership with local faith groups.

Organisations who attended the event and ran sessions included Skelton Grange Environment Centre, Leeds Bee Keepers, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, RSPB, Breathing Green and Leeds Urban Harvest. Activities available consisted of apple pressing, green woodworking, wild food walks, bush craft and fire lighting, minibeast hunts, tree identification, apple crafts and blacksmith demonstrations.

Food was provided by Rocket Catering, The Seasonal Larder and The Porkery hog roasts.

Although the entire weekend from Friday to Sunday was incessant rain we received many positive responses from the stall holders, attending groups and visitors with 100% saying that they would come again - despite the weather.

Going Digital Finding ways to communicate with and respond to visitors has always been a major responsibility for museums with comment books and feedback cards part of the traditional approach.

Leeds Art Gallery is now successfully using Twitter as a tool for dialogue with visitors and non-visitors. With followers now well over 43,000 from all over the UK and abroad we have now also set up a ‘tweetwall’ in our existing creative space ‘Artspace’ where images from our Flickr feed are integrated with @leedsartgallery tweets to show visitors the ways in which they can communicate and engage with what the gallery has to offer.

Pleased to Meet You Gabrielle Hamilton Community Engagement Manager I have worked for Leeds Museums and Galleries since 2002 after a long career working for St. Anne’s Community Services and was fortunate enough in 2007 to join the Curatorial Team as the new Community History Curator.

My role was to work with communities in Leeds, primarily at the Leeds City Museum, developing a programme of displays and events to reflect the rich cultural diversity in the city. In 2013 we secured ACE funding to develop this programme and we now have 6 Assistant Community Curators and a Volunteer Coordinator working across all our sites, working to engage people with our collections, develop and curate exhibitions and participate in a range of creative and innovative activities. This year we have worked with over 80 voluntary sector organisations and nearly 3,000 individuals. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 11

Our Strategic Aims

Make efficient use of all our resources, maximising their potential and minimising waste Key achievements: • Numerous new income streams have been initiated – canal boat moorings, film locations, venue hire, weaving on our historic looms and renewing our image library and print on demand service.

• Picture Lending goes from strength to strength with over 300 members borrowing 600+ artworks.

• Retail developments continue with new product ranges inspired by the collections, the launch of our online shop and continued revitalisation of our retail spaces.

• Launching a patron’s scheme in partnership with Leeds Art Fund to garner support from high net worth individuals.

• Grants secured from a range of bodies including; Monument Trust, Pilgrim Trust, Happy Museum, Art Fund, V&A Purchase grant fund, ACE Grants for the Arts and the Henry Moore Foundation.

12 Our Strategic Aims

Reductions in local government budgets continue to challenge us so we must be clear in demonstrating our impact and be entrepreneurial in our approach.

We are working hard to create a resilient business model, developing our commercial activity and exploring new ways of raising income. Additional income not only makes us more sustainable but enhances our profile and reputation. We take opportunities to be more efficient and more effective through developing green initiatives, collaborating with others to share services or functions whilst still raising the quality of service we deliver for our audiences.

Online Shopping

New ranges inspired by our collections

The online shop was launched in 2013 and has proved an invaluable marketing and sales tool; strengthening the brand with a unique and contemporary design inspired by Leeds, the museums and the inspirational collections to create a sense of identity and authenticity that our visitors expect.

With the strategic development and rollout of bespoke shop interiors there has also been the creation of collection inspired ranges, designed to offer visitors the opportunity to purchase an authentic and unique souvenir of their visit.

Through this initiative we have reached a much wider audience, the Leeds Cityscape designs alone have been sent to customers all over the UK and even as far as the USA, Australia and New Zealand!

With sumptuous visual imagery of the museums and collections we aim to encourage our online visitors to visit our diverse range of museums and galleries which hold the fantastic collections that have inspired us to develop the exclusive bespoke ranges featured online.

These ranges are hugely successful and create individuality, as well as establishing an important USP for each museum shop; we have also forged excellent collaborations with new aspiring artists and British artisan suppliers.

Bespoke ranges include: Temple Newsam; wallpaper collection range and the quirky poster range featuring the original poster designed by W.D.Suddaby in 1928 to advertise the opening of Temple Newsam House to the public.

Art to market workshops Last year a collaboration was forged between local contemporary arts organisation, East St Arts and our Head of Trading, Mary-Ann Irbins on behalf of Leeds Museums and Galleries to develop and deliver a series of workshops aimed at helping talented aspiring artists to realise their creative entrepreneurial skills.

The purpose of these sessions was to address the knowledge gap of artists having completed their formal education but having little idea of how to bring their art to the commercial market. The sessions covered included developing a unique selling proposition, positioning,

pricing, profit and the importance of collaborative relationships with the client/customer.

The first of these sessions took place in early 2013, followed swiftly by a second session; more than 28 artists have received this training so far with additional sessions planned for 2014.

The successful collaboration with East St Arts will continue in 2014 with Mary Ann developing a bespoke mentoring programme for approximately 10 artists. This programme will take the artists through the whole commercial process of ‘Art to Market’ from design brief to products on the shelves.

Fundraising developments The last year has seen roots being put down to create new fundraising relationships both with individuals and businesses.

Creating relationships with businesses takes time. We have had wins with local businesses this year, and they are with organisations with which we have existing relationships.

New relationships are being built which are hoped will be profitable over the coming years.

To reach individuals we have secured pleasing results through two different forms of fundraising; a

The Abbey House Toy Shop range captures the essence of the Victorian toy collection and features quirky and nostalgic figures that visitors love! The new product lines and retail environments have generated much needed additional income as well as reaching new audiences by creating an environment and unique retail offer that enhances the visitor experience, increases visitor spend and strengthens visitor loyalty.

Patrons Group with membership at £1,000 per annum and on-site donation boxes. The Patrons Group launched before Easter and had a dozen members at the time of writing. Donation boxes are a very simple and effective form of fundraising as they easily allow people to contribute to our exceptional work whilst in our venues. This form of ‘impulse donating’ gave a 200% increase in donations in just one month at Leeds City Museum. Plans are in place to roll out more boxes across all our sites.

The Director makes his choice A new book which reveals the pieces from our collections chosen by our Head of Leeds Museums and Galleries, John Roles as his personal favourites was published in March of this year.

With over 30 years of experience in museums, John, who has headed up the service since 2004 revealed his selection along with a personal insight and commentary into the reasons why he chose them as part of a new ‘Director’s Choice’ series by publishers Scala.

With an estimated 1.3 million objects our collections have a reputation for their quality, depth and unique nature, John was faced with a number of difficult decisions when making his choices, as he considered displays which have graced sites across the city over the years. ure Also set to feature in this Director’ss Series includes ‘Chatsworth by the Duke and Duchess of d Devonshire’, and ‘Mauritshuis

by Emilie Gordenker’.

www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 13

The Armley Weave Leeds Industrial Museum recently teamed up with Leeds Fashion Works’ designer Susan Gaunt and local weaver Greg Kotovs to get one of our looms back into shape.

self-funding with the money made by selling the cloth being reinvested to make more and hopefully in the long term pay to help restore more machinery.

Leeds Discovery Centre has once again achieved and maintained a recycling rate of 60% and for the past two years the building has had the top recycling rate of any Leeds City Council building.

Greg nursed our 1933 Hattersley loom back into working order with the guidance of textile designer Susan.

The whole project has been coordinated and organised by Suzie Shepherd from Leeds Fashion Works and now the loom has produced its first piece of cloth in over 50 years. We are using Yorkshire wool not Australian which is often favoured. The project will be

Lotherton Hall Goes Green Lotherton Hall first had central heating installed in the very early twentieth century with parts of the Edwardian heating system still in use today.

Now, twenty-first century technology is being brought in with the installation of a Biomass boiler to replace the old oil boilers which will considerably reduce the fuel bills and enable us to use the renewable energy.

In other initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of this stately home, lighting in the house is being changed to energy efficient LED bulbs and the central heating is being extended to include areas previously heated by electricity.

Moorings at Thwaite Mills Watermill Thwaite Mills Watermill recently introduced canal boat moorings to the island with the hope that it would provide a tranquil place for visitors to stay only a few miles from the city centre, make some income for the site and provide a fascinating addition for our visitors.

The moorings have been a huge success with every space being fully booked and a lovely community being created around the museum. Several of the boaters now also volunteer for the museum and help with work in the grounds and get involved with visitors on event days including offering boat rides. In the future we hope to increase the available spaces so that more people can enjoy staying with us.

14 Our Strategic Aims

Leeds Discovery Centre; LCC’s Top Recycler

We have achieved this by replacing individual desk bins with recycling stations consisting of a small general waste bin, adding a green bin for all paper and cardboard materials and a yellow bin for plastics. This small change has radically reduced the amount of waste taken to land fill, which is currently charged at £75.00 per tonne. In 2013/14 Leeds City Council recycled almost 400 tonnes, saving close to £35,000.

New grants awarded Once again we have been fortunate to have secured grant funding from a range of organisations this year for many projects across the service.

Acquisitions to the collections can often only happen with help from the organisations who give so generously.

The Art Fund, the ACE/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Henry Moore Archive Fund, Contemporary Art Society, Friends of Leeds Museums, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society and the Leeds Art Fund have contributed some £56,000 to new acquisitions to the collections.

New exhibitions and displays have also been supported: ACE and the Henry Moore Foundation for Bruce McLean:

Another condition of Sculpture; ACE and Leeds Art Fund supported the tour of Art and Life; Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Friends of Leeds Museums, Leeds Art Fund and Stubbs Design all contributed to the Harrison Clock display.

The Happy Museum project awarded Kirkstall Abbey £12,000 for a community and wellbeing project and The Monument Trust gave £14,000 for the conservation and restoration of the Duke of Leeds suite and the Horton Fawkes Beadwork mirror.

Our thanks go to all those organisations that have supported us this year.

Kirkstall Goes Gothic The 12th century ruins of Kirkstall Abbey made the perfect setting for the Leeds stop of the British Film Institute’s Gothic Season in 2013.

On the suitably spooky date of 31st October, Kirkstall Abbey’s Gothic Film Festival opened with a showing of the classic horror Nosferatu. Screenings of seven further horror films took place in

the dramatic setting of the abbey church, with live musical accompaniment led by composer Neil Brand. Screenings for children took place on Saturday 2nd November with storytellers, performers, and prizes for the most scary Goth. Food and drink throughout the festival was provided by local businesses who can usually be found at the abbey’s monthly deli market.

The festival ran for four days, entertaining nearly 3000 people. The festival was made possible by Leeds Museums and Galleries working with the Cambridge Film Trust and Broadway Nottingham, in association with the National Media Museum Bradford and Showroom Sheffield, and with support from BFI Film Forever.

Leeds Inspired - Bespoke Product Ranges The brief was originally for Lizzie Presst to create a design that captured the energy of Leeds City with its ever changing, ever evolving landscape.

The design was to translate well onto textiles, ceramics and stationery items and feature some of Leeds’ most iconic buildings. The result was the Leeds Cityscape designs which exceeded all expectations in terms of excellence and resilience of design and ability to engage customers and generate sales.

The design has also evolved into an excellent marketing tool with Cityscape

artwork installed on the meeting room walls of the new shopping centre, Trinity Leeds, and bespoke commissions from academic institutes such as the Grammar School at Leeds and Leeds City Council’s International Relations ensuring this iconic brand is reaching a much wider local and worldwide audience.

The bespoke Cityscape range has a wide appeal across several audiences and demonstrates clearly the positive collaboration between the artist, Leeds Museums and Galleries and the artisan British suppliers who worked together to create this iconic and commercially successful bespoke range.

Pleased to Meet You Bobbie Rob Robertson Keeper Tem Temple Newsam House I have had an ec eclectic career which started in the performing arts and has led me through various routes to leading the te team looking after one of the nation’s greatest country houses, Temple Newsam.

I have bee been the Principal Keeper for six years and one of my biggest tasks has been using the House to maximise the potential for income. It has grown as a venue to h hire whether for a romantic wedding or as an authentic set for film and television. tel In 2013 17% of income generated came from wedding and film hire.

W have held over 100 weddings in the last 4 years with ceremonies, drinks We rec receptions and wedding breakfasts taking place whilst still continuing to rem open to the public. In 2013 alone the filming in the house ranged from remain CB favourite Gigglebiz to being a location for a BBC1 drama series based the CBBC best on the bestselling novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, due to be shown Christmas 2015. For this the House closed for a week; historic rooms were emptied and re-dressed.

Actors in 18th century finery, wigs, ostrich feathers, cameras, cables and tape were everywhere, the wit over one hundred extras and lit with real candle chandeliers but, all the stone staircase was filled with planning had been put into pl place to ensure that all was safe and the house came out unscathed. We all enjoyed the delights and offe offerings of the catering vans.

Every time I arrive at work I k know how lucky I am to be part of the history of such a beautiful and enticing place. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 15

Our Strategic Aims Provide strong regional leadership by collaborating with partners and ensuring a diverse, skilled and motivated workforce

Key achievements: • Our newly-appointed Partnership Co-ordinator is galvanising our partnerships making them more visible and making us more valuable to our partners.

• Our regional WYLAMP partnership goes from strength to strength creating training and knowledge sharing opportunities as well as strategic activity such as audience research and business planning.

• 24 interns hosted this year in addition to trainees in Registrars, Conservation and Biology Curation.

• A whole host of new volunteer opportunities have been launched across the service from ceramic cleaning, to guided tours, textile conservation, warm welcome and event volunteers.

• The Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle partnership has attracted £680k in investment starting with commissions by Leeds born Thomas Houseago for the Grand Depart.

16 Our Strategic Aims

We maximise the impact of our collections, sites and expertise to deliver a programmes of exhibitions, learning and engagement activities and opportunities for more people to get involved.

We strive to be a leader in the sector. We offer genuine community participation and achieve high impact programmes, reaching record audiences with a diverse programme and visitor experiences. In the current climate we are realistic about what we are able to deliver; we have budget reductions but the city is keen to encourage our success as we try new ways of delivery, more flexibility and develop sustainable partnerships.

Commemorating the First World War Leeds Museums and Galleries kicked off preparations for the commemoration of the First World War with a regional seminar held in September 2013 at Leeds City Museum.

A whole host of local, regional, national and international groups were invited to network and share their plans for the centenary. Over 130 people attended representing a myriad of arts and heritage organisations, including Urban Sprawl CIC, Scarborough Museums Trust, The History Press and Europeana 1914-18. This provided a much needed regional hub for centenary events and an opportunity for organisations to discover new partners and share experience.

The Preservative Party, a group of young people aged 14-24 who work with us, developed a timeline of Leeds during the First World War: www.facebook.com/ ww1leeds, they deliver workshops to community groups, explaining how the timeline works and how community members can contribute their own stories to it.

Leeds Museums and Galleries has also been providing regional support to colleagues with advice on how to work creatively across a wide variety of collections. Through the national Money & Medals Network, we have delivered training on digital engagement with First World War medals.

BBC in Leeds In June 2013 Leeds City Museum was host to the BBC School’s Challenge which saw teams of Year 8 students being challenged to be a CBBC Development team for the day – including generating a creative idea for the channel or website and developing a budget for the project.

In July Leeds City Museum then collaborated with BBC North, to take part in the CBBC Live in Leeds event.

Aimed at children aged 6-12 years old and their families, activities took place in Millennium Square out the front of the museum, and in the museum which hosted the Creative Zone. The Creative Zone contained all sorts of digital activities. CBBC broadcasted the event live from 25th – 27th July.

www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 17

Leeds Museums and Galleries Abroad Two members of staff went on exciting study trips this year.

We were offered the opportunity to be involved in two British Council programmes; Transform Museums: Brazil and India-UK: Connections through Culture.

Camilla Nichol, our Head of Collections, visited Brazil in October as part of a programme to connect senior museum staff from each country for future partnership projects; from staff training to touring exhibitions and content development. The group visited over 20 museums and cultural institutions in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte. In November, Antonia Lovelace, our World Cultures Curator, was awarded a travel bursary to tour India for research for the forthcoming Voices of Asia gallery in Leeds City Museum.

Visiting museums in Delhi, Rajasthan and Gujarat she was able to exchange dialogue about best practice for community engagement and connect with traditional craft makers. The fruits of this trip will feature in the new gallery in 2014.

The Hainsworth Partnership The Hainsworth partnership has proved to be a productive and lasting partnership. Hainsworths, a local woollen mill, provide the museum with expertise and materials.

Their staff have got our over 100 year old spinning mule working, trained our staff in how to use it and help us keep it in good repair.

They provide us with slubbing (wool) which we spin and send back to them. We were fortunate enough to feature Hainsworths in an exhibition at the Museum back in 2011 to 12, where we displayed the history of a fascinating local mill and also showcased amazing innovations they have come up with to keep the business thriving well into the 21st century, the highlight of these has to be the woollen coffin. The staff at Leeds Industrial Museum feel proud and fortunate to be able to work with such a well renowned local firm.

18 Our Strategic Aims

Sharing our knowledge The ‘Our Sector’ section of our website has been launched with the aim of opening up our service to other partners and interested bodies.

On this section of the website you will find a place where all of our policies ranging from our strategic plan to our human remains policy can be downloaded. You will also find out about the history of our service and our aims for the future.

Finally there are the names, pictures and contact details of key member of our team to help get visitors to the site in contact with the relevant person quickly and efficiently.

We are looking to develop a blog section on this section of the website giving members of the management team an opportunity to promote areas of best practice that they generate or come across within their fields of work.

Kirkstall Abbey Tour Guides In April 2013, we decided to involve volunteers in Kirkstall Abbey as tour guides.

This had not been done before, so a role profile was drawn up, advertised and we received 18 applications from candidates from all walks of life and all ages.

Interviews took place and 9 volunteers were taken on. They were trained up by the Visitor Assistants and undertook some of their own research to enhance the tours.

The tours took place mainly on weekends and were free for visitors who wanted to learn more about the prestigious Kirkstall Abbey and lasted during the summer months. Two of the volunteers then went on to do guided tours at the Leeds Art Gallery during the winter months.

The project was deemed successful and advertisements have already taken place for tour guides for 2014 with two of the original volunteers, volunteering for this season!

Here are comments from two of the tour guides:

“I was given a quick run-down of the history of the abbey and given a tour by an experienced guide. Once I had gone away and learnt some more material myself I gave members of the public tours around the abbey.

I loved interacting with the public and always received positive feedback from the tours. I felt the experience improved my confidence and also taught me a lot of interesting information about the abbey.”

Pleased to Meet You Seetal Kaur Gahir Intern for Voices of Asia exhibition I’ve always had a fascination with art, history and heritage so I decided to gain some experience in the museum sector.

After volunteering with Leeds Museums and Galleries from spring 2012, I graduated from UCL in London and managed to gain the internship placement for the Voices of Asia project to work as an assistant alongside Antonia Lovelace, the Curator of World Cultures. What followed was a fantastically diverse experience where apart from cataloging, photographing and researching objects and advising on the content of the display, I was also able to get really involved in making the four films for the exhibition, particularly ‘Dancing Gods’ which I directed and helped to produce.

I gained a great amount of positive insight and valuable knowledge into both the creative and analytical aspects of curatorial work during my placement and seeing ‘Voices of Asia’ come to life in the gallery after planning it for so long was a truly magical experience.

I’ve since secured a writing role in a digital marketing firm but aim to move into the arts, culture and heritage sector in the future and hope to work with Leeds Museums and Galleries again. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 19

The West Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle Yorkshire Leeds Art Gallery, Henry Moore Institute, Collaboration and partnership between Sculpture Park and the Hepworth museums regionally is nothing new, but Local Authority 2013-14 saw a major development as four Yorkshire Wakefield we joined forces to promote each other in a cross marketing proposition which West Yorkshire visual art venues got is really attracting national and international together to form the Yorkshire Sculpture Museum attention. In the words of the New York Triangle with the backing of Welcome to Times, “Yorkshire has reaffirmed its position Yorkshire and Arts Council England.

Partnership on the global arts map.” 2014 will see further This Partnership arose in response to Arts Council England’s Major Partner Museum programme and a growing sense that the region’s local authority museum services needed to work closer together.

Recognising the world beating quality of our 20th century sculpture collections, the legacy of local artists Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth and the vibrant exhibition programmes hosted by the partners –

The aim of the partnership is to help the museums and galleries become self-sustaining by sharing resources, best practice, information and expertise. This partnership is two years old and to date has been working on an informal understanding, although this is soon to change as the partnership looks to codify its relationship and build upon the early successes it has generated.

Pleased to Meet You Sarah Allen Learning and Access Officer cer I have wanted to work in heritage as long as I can remember. As a child I was fascinated by stately homes and historical costumes.

I am lucky in that my site teams are really creative and have lots of fun exploring the collections with visitors. One day I will be dressed as an explorer leading a bear hunt for nursery children around the Victorian Streets, the next I will be creating sculpture with adults with learning difficulties. No two days are ever the same and that is why I love being a Learning & Access Officer.

We are currently working with the Happy Museum to connect even more closely with our local community. We have been working with all ages and abilities making sure people feel welcome and a part of what we do, it is a really exciting time to work for Leeds Museums and Galleries.

20 Our Strategic Aims

exciting new developments as the Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle participate in the Yorkshire Festival with a major new sculpture commission.

Bexley Oncology Wing Partnership, St James hospital Over the past four years Leeds Museums and Galleries have been working in partnership with St. James’ Hospital curating exhibitions for their Atrium, a grand hall in St. James’ Bexley Wing welcoming patients, relatives and members of staff to Leeds Cancer Centre.

Each spring sees a new display in the Hospital, with a variety of objects on show, from anthropology collections to

fine and decorative works of art, and from social history objects to natural science specimens. This partnership enables us to reach new audiences and allows museum artefacts to be seen outside of their traditional contexts. It is hoped that by displaying museum objects in the Hospital it will help create an environment that improves the wellbeing and health of St James Bexley Wing’s users, their families and staff.

This year’s exhibition brings together a mix of objects from all over the world, including games from Africa, Greek wine jugs, and Giant Snails from South Africa.

Called ‘Small Pleasures’ this display was put together by the HLF Curatorial Trainee, Heather Mikhail and explores the small pleasures of life, whether you like video games, bird watching or just a nice cup of tea.

www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 21

Our Strategic Aims

Provides outstanding learning experiences and opportunities for children and young people Key achievements: • 283,000 children and young people have engaged with our programmes in the last year.

• We took a Stanley Spencer painting into a Leeds school for the day as part of the BBC ‘Masterpieces in Schools’ initiative.

• Our Youth engagement programme continues to develop with The Preservative Party creating a First World War online timeline.

• In response to changes in the National Curriculum we have undertaken intensive consultation, training and CPD and programme development. Through strategic partnerships with the regional teaching alliance and our joint convenership of Yorkshire GEM we can deliver high quality learning programmes for every child in Leeds.

22 Our Strategic Aims

We aim to create child-centred, high quality cultural engagements that foster curiosity, creativity and conversation and develop a life-long love of learning.

We work with all ages and abilities; from early years to formal education, intergenerational family activities to youth engagement, higher and further education to adult learning. Programmes provide opportunities to view local, national and international arts and culture and participate through workshops, activities and volunteering.

We offer comprehensive, interdisciplinary learning programmes, which illuminate our collections, linked to art, science, history, literacy and numeracy.

New curriculum consultation, development & staff training Primary and lower secondary education in England and Wales is changing and our formal learning programmes need to shift in line with these changes.

From the autumn 2013, when the new curriculum was announced, to March 2014 and beyond, we have carried out extensive consultation with local teachers about what they want to see in our programmes.

We have run pioneering workshops and an intensive training programme involving our learning and collections teams and local teachers. Sessions included presentations from partner schools such as teaching alliance hub schools and provided examples of educational best practice.

Planning work with teachers followed this, with a series of subject specific two hour focus groups with primary and secondary teachers (History, Art, English, Maths and

My learning The My Learning website has enjoyed another successful year, with an increase in visitor figures of over 17% on last year.

The M&S Company Archive e-learning hub, launched at the beginning of the year, inspired a national ‘Advertise the Archive’ schools competition, with the winning poster designs featuring in a temporary display at the M&S Company Archive’s Leeds exhibition space.

The My Learning team have been busy creating lots of new content, including 20 bite-size resources for the First World War Centenary commemorations taking place during 2014-2018 and a consortium of Lancashire museums commissioned

Sandford Awards Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills, Leeds Art Gallery, Thwaite Mills Watermill and Leeds Discovery Centre achieved the prestigious Sandford Award for Heritage Education in the summer of 2013 building on the Sandford Awards of 2012 to four of our other sites.

Science). This resulted in reports that will inform the learning team’s planning and development for the new curriculum as they develop new engaging workshops and outreach for Leeds Museums and Galleries. This curriculum consultation is also leading to exciting new partnerships and projects, widening our influence further afield to North Yorkshire. We have gained valuable teacher expertise from the process, but the teachers have also gained cultural knowledge as shown from these quotes;

“It was great to find out more about what is available in the city and the potential there is for developing my teaching through use of the facilities!”

The rigorous judging process looked at the range, content and practicalities of our schools, family and outreach programmes at each site. We had fantastic feedback from the judges, who said: “At Leeds Discovery Centre…teachers can have a session tailor-made to their needs…they have a real sense that this is a resource especially for them. The learning staff offer inspiring sessions and Leeds is very lucky to have such a resource as this.”

Family learning programme

Secondary English teacher

My Learning to create a suite of eight resources linked to their project ‘Preston Remembers 1914-1918’.

The specially themed suite (pictured) already features a host of WWI objects, documents and photographs contributed by museums across the UK (in response to a national call-out) ranging from memorials, religious items and Christmas gifts to letters home, trench art and prison graffiti.

The resources include discussion and activity ideas to help teachers present the commemorations in creative and empathetic ways through different subjects and key stages. Many more resources will be added throughout the WWI Centenary. www.mylearning.org

Our well established drop-in sessions at Leeds Art Gallery are a popular way for families to enjoy art together in the gallery. We make the activities easy for everyone and welcome all families to come and try it out.

Some visitors will just pop by and others might stay for the whole session, we aim for these sessions to be informal and encourage participation within a relaxed atmosphere. We plan to build on the success of these regular family events by continuing to offer innovative activities linked to our collections and exhibitions, as well as exciting one-off events like our involvement in city-wide events such as Light Night and The Big Draw. In addition, during school holidays we offer artist-led activities in our Artspace for children, young people and families.

Artful encourages families to play games and enjoy creative activities together using the art in the gallery as a starting point.

Lastly, Playground offers exciting multisensory events for under-fives to gain confidence as learners, explorers and imaginative thinkers. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 23

Pleased to Meet You Angie Thompson Youth Engagement Officer I began working for the Leeds Museums and Galleries in December 2013, as the service’s Youth Engagement Officer.

I am based at Leeds City Museum and work with young people 13 – 24 years of age across our museum sites. In addition, I deliver outreach sessions to young people within their communities and obtain referrals from youth services, youth offending, charities who support vulnerable young people and social care. I love working for the service as the role generates lots of creativity! I really enjoy observing how the young people develop during the sessions and are inspired by our collections.

Recently, I have developed the Youth Curator scheme. This scheme encourages young people to work within our galleries on different topics. Recent workshops have included photography, object handling, street art and dramatization, all inspired by our collections. I deliver bespoke workshops, designed in collaboration with young people. Furthermore, I am developing a teenage parent scheme, supported by Leeds Social Care, to welcome parents and their children in our service. In addition, I manage the Preservative Party which is a dedicated young people’s group who meet weekly at the City Museum. Look out for their new exhibition in 2016!

Take One Picture at Leeds Art Gallery As the Yorkshire region representative of the National Gallery’s countrywide scheme Take One Picture, Leeds Art Gallery have enjoyed working with schools in our area on both a small and a large scale.

Artworks from the Leeds Art Gallery collection have been used as inspiration for workshops and projects around literacy, enquiry and critical thinking skills, as well as cross-curricular planning for creative and imaginative activities. National Gallery Education will then display a selection of the work from the project in the annual Take One Picture exhibition at the National Gallery, and on this website.

Each year Take One Picture focuses on paintings to stimulate work in classrooms; for one primary school in north Leeds, Bridget Riley’s stripped artwork ‘Winter Palace’ (1990) inspired painting with a large car tyre and an amazing layered cake. Ambitious CPD events in July and September in partnership with York Museums Trust also introduced teachers to new ways of working with their pupils and we were 24 Our Strategic Aims

thrilled with the feedback, one teacher shared her surprise at... “how much you can get out of one artwork”

whilst another wrote that...

“I’ve learnt to show art in a different way and to allow investigation in a way I would not have done before.” www.nationalgallery.org.uk/take-one

ARTiculation Prize 2014 The ARTiculation Prize is an annual event designed to promote the appreciation and discussion of art.

Sixth form students are invited to deliver a ten minute presentation to an audience about a work of art, artefact or architecture of their choice. In Yorkshire, this special partnership between Leeds Art Gallery and The Hepworth Wakefield also offers local schools a unique opportunity to explore two very different galleries through introductory workshops.

Participants said; “There was a lot of discussion and debate involved, which was a better way of learning because it made you think more about the paintings.”

Now in our fourth year of supporting this Roche Court initiative, we were delighted to continue our success in this competition with Ella Weeks from Benton Park School winning the Yorkshire heat of the competition. Ella Weeks presented her ideas about a street artwork by Dmitri Vrubel My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, 1990. Dr Abigail Harrison Moore adjudicator of the event celebrated Ella’s work saying: “I chose this paper as it really demonstrated her research journey, from first encountering the image on a school visit to Berlin, to thinking about the graffiti that has been scrawled on it in relation to the debates about homosexuality and the Winter Olympics.”

Child Friendly Leeds Award Shortlist Leeds City Council is working to bring everyone together to make Leeds a child friendly city; a place where children are valued, supported, enjoy growing up and look forward to a bright future.

In January 2014, Abbey House Museum and Kirkstall Abbey were nominated in the first Child Friendly Leeds Awards.

We were delighted to reach the final five in the category of ‘Best Place in Leeds for Children and Young People’.

The award was voted for by the public and we had some fantastic comments through our nominations, some of which included; “Kirkstall Abbey has been fantastic for Leeds Dads. We are a dads group who get together monthly, and the staff have been brilliant at providing a location for us to meet.”

“So far as I know, it is the only free, supervised, play facility with indoor and outdoor space in Leeds. It is imaginative and supportive of children’s imaginations; it varies across the seasons and responds to children’s changing demands of it.”

Learning Partnerships with Leeds University We have been working closely with the Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Leeds to explore how electricity was first introduced into Lotherton Hall in 1903 and gained around £12,000 in funding for it over a couple of years.

Working jointly with local schools to develop a workshop on electricity which highlights the social history of the development of electricity and how a country house like Lotherton Hall pioneered this technology, we have used both museum collections to show pupils the impact it had on interior design and how people originally feared electricity.

The partnership has enabled the University to disseminate academic research to a wider audience, young children to have access to previously unseen collections, and has aided the development of Leeds Museums and

Galleries’ scientific offer for schools.

In addition we are working in partnership with the University’s Department of Drama and Performing Arts with students who are developing dramatic performances in our historic sites as part of their degree studies. Leeds Academic Museum Performers (L.A.M.P) aim to shine a light on history through their

performances, including the themes of WWI, suffragettes, the Romans, the Greeks and Saxons alongside museum exhibits this year at Leeds City Museum.

We are hoping to grow and develop these and other partnerships with the University and also worked with them on the Group for Education in Museums Conference in 2013 held in Leeds. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 25

Our collections

Loans

Central to our service are the collections; an estimated 1.3 million individual objects, which include our historic buildings, across a vast range of disciplines.

We have sent our collections all over the UK and to Italy, Japan, Germany and USA. That’s 1,318 items loaned to 221 venues worldwide.

Our collections derive from across the world, cultures and time – spanning some five billion years of Earth history. It is an ever-growing collection and this is only made possible through gifts, bequests, purchases and the generosity of a range of supporters and funders. Over £400,000 was raised in support of acquisitions.

Our top ten

1

Edgar Degas, Portrait of a Woman: Head Resting on one Hand

This sculpture was accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax by HM Government from the estate of Lucian Freud and allocated to Leeds Art Gallery, 2013.

There is some debate as to who the sitter of this usual sculpture might be, one of only a handful of three-dimensional portraits by Degas known to survive.

26 Our collections

2

Hello Kitty Sushi Bar

This recent addition is on display in Voices of Asia at Leeds City Museum.

Part of our contemporary collecting of popular culture with an Asian Flavour, Hello Kitty is an internationally recognised brand.

3

EE Gregory Geology Collection

This collection was transferred from Doncaster Museum as part of the CIRCA project. A lifetime’s collection of rocks, minerals and fossils of Leeds geologist and collector Ernest E. Gregory.

4

Callum Innes, Lamp Black Violet / Titanium White, 2012 & Cobalt Blue Light / Red Orange, 2012

Two unique watercolours by the notable Scottish and former Turner prize-nominated artist Callum Innes.

Each work is ‘constructed’ from two watercolour pigments (as indicated by the title) applied wet on wet.

Generously donated by the Leeds Art Fund to celebrate their centenary.

Image courtesy of Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh.

5

Simon Fujiwara, Rebekkah, 2012

These fantastic sculptures are the outcome of Simon Fuijiwara’s unique experiment of social intervention following Rebekkah, a 16 year old girl from Hackney who was one of the protagonists of the London riots in 2011.

Courtesy of the Contemporary Art Society and the artist.

6

Tailor’s knock, presser, clapper or pounding block

Photo: Joe Plommer

This item was originally used to beat steam back into the fabric to flatten the material and produce crisp edges.

It was used by a tailoress based at the Corn Exchange, Leeds, in the 1950s and 1960s, which was unusual for the period as most tailors were male.

Purchased and owned by Mrs Florence Paton. Donated by her daughter Mrs J. K. Lockett.

7

Creamware mug

A Yorkshire or Staffordshire made mug with a surprise frog in the bottom!

8

Love & War items

These are contemporary military issue items that were collected as part of our Love and War project, exploring the themes of selfsacrifice, duty, camaraderie and loyalty with both a contemporary serviceman and ones who fought in earlier conflicts.

9

Jumper from the 1980s

10

Series of Letters

A typical jumper from the 1980s from a northern designer and utilising the newly computerised knitting machines which allowed greater freedom of design.

A collection of ephemera items found under the floorboards of a house in Roundhay, Leeds, that had been used as an officers’ mess by 111 Heavy AntiAircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery in 1943. Donated by Samantha Bushrod. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 27

Our major exhibitions Over 12 major exhibitions from From 1 April 2013 31 March 2014. Here are the highlights...

At a glance: Jun - Sept 2013 Celebrating AWN Pugin Lotherton Hall July 2013 - Sept 2013 Spring Rain; Becky Beasley Leeds Art Gallery July 2013 - Jan 2014 Through the Magic Mirror; the work of Anthony Browne Leeds City Museum Oct 2013 - Apr 2014 Nocturne Leeds Art Gallery Oct 2013 to Jun 2014.

Chinese Paintings from the Leeds Collections Lotherton Hall

June 2013 - Sept 2013

Celebrating AWN Pugin Lotherton Hall Each year CAMAC, a design and exhibition company have run a Student Wallpaper Design Competition to challenge surface design students from colleges across the UK to create a contemporary wallpaper design from a commercially orientated brief.

Students were asked to draw inspiration from the life and work of arguably the greatest British architect, designer and writer of the 19th century, AWN Pugin in his bicentennial year.

July 2013 - Sept 2013

Spring Rain; Becky Beasley Leeds Art Gallery The exhibition featured new work by Becky Beasley including photography, sculpture, installation and text.

Oct 2014 - Sept 2014 Potts of Leeds; Clocks of Chrarcter Leeds Industrial Museum Nov 2013 - Mar 2014 Rembrandt; Etchings from the Leeds Collection Portraits and People Temple Newsam House Jan 2014 - Dec 2014 A Snapshot of Yorkshire Abbey House Museum Feb 2014 - 17 Aug 2014 Natural Beauty 2 Leeds City Museum Feb 2014 - May 2014 Bruce McLean; Another Condition of Sculpture Leeds Art Gallery

28 Our major exhibitions

Becky Beasley, Spring Rain (family) (detail), 2013.

Courtesy of the artist, Laura Bartlett Gallery and Francesca Minini.

All rights reserved.

July 2013 - Jan 2014

Through the magic mirror: Anthony Browne Leeds City Museum Through the Magic Mirror: The World of Anthony Browne was one of our most popular exhibitions yet, attracting almost 78,000 visitors.

A touring exhibition from Seven Stories, it paired beautiful original artwork and museum objects with immersive and playful environments for families to explore. The accompanying learning programme was equally successful, with over 400 children visiting the exhibition as part of a pre-booked education visit.

What our visitors said:

“Thank you for so many hours of joy for me and my children.”

Oct 2013 - Apr 2014

Nocturne Leeds Art Gallery This display set Leeds artist Atkinson Grimshaw’s much loved 19th century ‘moonlights’ alongside Turner-prize nominee George Shaw’s atmospheric paintings of the housing estate where he grew up (from the Arts Council Collection).

George Shaw, The End of Time, 2008-09 Enamle on board.

Arts Council Collection © the artist.

Oct 2013 to June 2014

Chinese Paintings from the Leeds Collections Lotherton Hall Image: Young Lovers by a Lake, watercolour on paper, Chinese school, 1780-1880.

Donated by Sir Alvary and Lady Gascoigne, 1968 © Leeds Museums and Galleries and licensed under Creative Commons BY NC SA.

Leeds is lucky to have a variety of Chinese paintings which range in date from the 14th century to the 1990s.

The exhibition covered a range of subject matter and techniques, including early survivals of religious frescos, romantic riverside scenes, languid lovers by lakes, and ink and wash paintings that highlighted the moods and details of nature.

www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 29

Oct 2014 - Sept 2014

Potts of Leeds; Clocks of Character Leeds Industrial Museum To celebrate the work of this great Leeds company, Armley Mills exhibited the Potts family’s private collection of clocks for the public for the very first time.

Lots of visitors came along to see what really made them tick.

Image of William Potts, courtesy of the Potts family. All rights reserved.

Nov 2013 - Mar 2014

Rembrandt; Etchings from the Leeds Collection Portraits and People Temple Newsam House This was a rare chance to see some of Leeds’ collection of etchings by Rembrandt, displayed in the stunning location of Temple Newsam House.

Cropped self-portrait in cap and scarf with the face dark: bust, signed and dated Rembrandt.

1633, Haarlem. Second state of two, B17. © Leeds Museums and Galleries and licensed under Creative Commons BY NC SA.

The exhibition ran for nine months and consisted of two displays; the first included Rembrandt’s intricate portraits and figure studies, and the second, Rembrandt’s biblical prints.

Jan 2014 - Dec 2014

A Snapshot of Yorkshire Abbey House Museum

This fascinating exhibition celebrated Yorkshire and the traditions that made it what it is today.

A Snapshot of Yorkshire featured the results of a Yorkshire survey including which beauty spots were voted the favourite places to visit. It featured famous brands originating from the county, as well as providing an opportunity to learn about Yorkshire people and culture, and to take a closer look at some of the iconic and quirky Yorkshire objects from our collections.

30 Our major exhibitions

Feb 2014 - 17 Aug 2014

Natural Beauty 2 Leeds City Museum Last year we challenged photographers of all ages and abilities to capture and share their images of the natural world.

The exhibition showcased some of the best photographs from over a thousand entries to our competition.

From majestic lions on the plains of Africa, to the humble robin in the parks of Leeds. Natural Beauty 2 featured the beauty and wonder of the wildlife all around us. In particular, we think it showed that you don’t have to cross the world to find the extraordinary – sometimes it is right here on our doorstep.

Feb 2014 - May 2014

Bruce McLean; Another Condition of Sculpture Leeds Art Gallery Another Condition of Sculpture drew upon work made by Bruce McLean over 50 years but through the prism of his new and recent work.

The exhibition introduced his work to audiences not familiar with his distinctive, irreverent voice. It provided new perspectives by creating surprising junctures between earlier and new work, McLean was shown to be an artist who, frequently joining forces with others, consistently breaks rules, allowing audiences to experience work that disrupts disciplines and breaches borders.

Bruce McLean, The generation game of sculpture, a cuddly toy, a …no I’ve said that, 2010.

Oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas.

Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Leighton, Berlin. www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 31

Our feedback A great place to take the kids and also learn yourself An excellent museum, one of the best that I have visited, the attraction is the interactive displays for children (and adults!!).

We all learned about the history of Leeds, Egypt and found the animal displays really informative. The staff were very polite and knowledgeable and interacted well with the children.

Absolutely breath-taking We were at Kirkstall Abbey on a recent visit to UK to meet new family and they took us here. It was absolutely breath-taking in all its glory. It was a dismal day and misty and it just made for a perfect atmosphere. Beautiful site.

Well worth a visit.

Fantastic day out

Great way to

We had a fantastic family day out here. It’s really good value compared to similar places. The park is good with things for older and younger children. The bird garden is really interesting and the house is lovely inside. It’s a great idea to put things in the children can touch and to have the dressing up room so they don’t get bored.

There was something for all of us here and we had a fab day out.

A hidden gem and a joy to behold We enjoyed our tour, so interesting, accessible and informative.

We were thrilled to come and see the objects and enjoyed our fabulous hands on history session.

32 Our feedback

It’s been an inspiring year at Leeds Museums and Galleries. Watch this space.

My first time in the house. Stunning…

Opportunity to get up close to a superb collection of artefacts. I was taken by the time different themes and conditions of individual rooms, giving insight into different historical periods, fashions and styles.

Some rooms are pristine, others stripped right back to the original Tudor brick work. I felt part of the experience - not roped 20 feet away from something you really want to see.

Interesting and manageable collection A worthwhile visit with a really good range, particularly of C20th sculpture and visual art. I really enjoyed the exhibition of photographs of sculptures in multiple contexts as well as a lot of the permanent collection. An easy and interesting place to spend a couple of hours and the cafe was beautiful!

spend an afternoon This is somewhere I’ve visited ever since I was a child. I still love walking round the little Victorian streets, there’s so much attention to detail in them! They seem to consider adults as well as children when it comes to exhibitions and there’s plenty to keep you entertained for a few hours.

Brilliant Day Out! Great day out, staff are lovely and helpful. Good value for money and would strongly recommend this place to anyone!

Lovely family day

Went here as part of the Leeds waterfront festival.

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Well organised. Our children loved the barge trip and even got to steer the barge.

Everyone involved so friendly and helpful. Will definitely attend again next year.

www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 33

Our statistics

88,086 objects documented

255 objects acquired

30,430

participants in planned family activities

263

community groups and organisations engaged with

710,364 web hits

114,424 visitors to temporary exhibitions

1841 volunteer hours

1,237,219 overall visitors 34 Our statistics

40,266 adult learning participants

18

exhibitions

37,204 school visits

671

children and young people benefitting from our Youth Engagement Programme

Our sponsors and supporters A big thank you to all our sponsors and supporters over the last year.

Ark Display Graphics

Logistik

Arts Council Collection Partnership supported by Christie’s

Lt Col Henry and Mrs Patricia Hurst Bequest

Arts Council England

Morris & Co

AS Frames

Northern Art Prize

Breathing Green

Olav Arnold Charitable Trust for Lotherton music

Brown Shipley Private Banking BTCV Canal and Rivers Trust Canal Connections CC Imaging Contemporary Art Society Corrocoat Dale Photographic Designation Development Fund Hainsworth Happy Museum Henry Moore Foundation Heritage Lottery Fund Hyde Park Source

Pictures Plus Sound Leisure Ltd Stubbs Design The Art Fund The Friends of Leeds Museums The Grammar School at Leeds The Leeds Art Fund The Monument Trust The Princes Trust The Thoresby Society The V & A Purchase Grant Scheme Tomasso Brothers Fine Art Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Leeds Civic Trust Leeds College Art and Design Leeds Fashion Works Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society Linden Trust

www.leeds.gov.uk/museumandgalleries 35

Discover more online www.leeds.gov.uk/museumsandgalleries Join our mailing list www.leeds.gov.uk/museumsmailinglist Follow our behind-the-scenes blog www.leeds.gov.uk/secretlivesofobjects Uncover a world of learning www.mylearning.org Find us on social networks Twitter @LeedsArtGallery Twitter @LeedsMuseums facebook.com/LeedsMuseumsandGalleries