Category: Bury Art Museum

Bury Art Museum visit

Recently, I arranged a visit to the Bury Art Museum and Sculpture Centre with a history meetup group.

After visiting the Fusiliers museum over the road, we made our way to see the Bury Open exhibition which was still showing in the upstairs gallery.

Photo of myself at the Bury Open looking at my Robinsons brewery burnished etching print

The art gallery at Bury has a superb permanent collection of fine art and sculpture such as the painting by JWM Turner entitled “Calais Sands at Low Water, Poissards Collecting Bait”.

Calais Sands at Low Water, Poissards Collecting Bait by JWM Turner

I am currently preparing ideas for future prints while I take a short break from the printing. The photo below shows the remaining prints I will be working on in the coming months for this printmaking project.

I have also been updating the website gallery with my latest prints from the last 12 months. There are now two online galleries. You can access them in the menu navigation.

Next month, I will be attending a 1-day Japanese woodcut printmaking workshop. More to follow on this soon…

Albrecht Dürer’s material world

I had some time off recently and decided to visit the Dürer exhibition in Manchester at the Whitworth Art Gallery. This is the first major exhibition of Dürer’s work for fifty years.

Rare woodcut block
Exhibition introduction

I was fascinated by the process of woodcut printing and the woodcut block on display, so much detailed work and observation of the subject matter. The exhibition covers the career of Dürer over his life and is located over two galleries linked by a long corridor which has a timeline of event in his lifetime.

My favourite woodcut print was of the large horse (circa 1505).

The large horse (circa 1505)

Later in the day, I had an appointment with Bury Art Museum to drop off and collect some of my prints at the art shop. One of my prints i submitted is the canal print (as seen below)

Macclesfield canal (Etching Aquatint)

Exhibitions on the horizon

I am currently busy getting ready to show some new prints for two forthcoming exhibitions.

The first exhibition is not related to Stockport and relates to another town in the Manchester area called Radcliffe and the project is called ‘Spirit of a Place’ organised by Bury Art Museum. The second will be the annual art exhibition organised by Stockport Art Guild later this year.

Earlier this month, I took part in a 1-day photo screen-printing workshop in Derby. During the workshop, I learnt the process how to create a full colour CMYK prints using acrylic inks on paper.

The day was very interesting and enjoyable and I produced a number of prints for the Radcliffe project. Here is a photo of me screen-printing at Green Door Printmaking Studios.

Screen-printing workshop at Green Door Printmaking Studios, Derby

The Stockport Art Guild exhibition will be held at Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery between late November until early January 2023. I will be submitting two etchings aquatint prints on the theme of Stockport which I will reveal in a future post.

Visit to Bury Art Museum and new etching

Last Saturday at the printmaking workshop, I started a new etching plate which is the first for 2022. The new plate once completed will depict the White Lion public house which has now been turned into swanky apartments in the centre of town. The plate is slightly larger than the normal 18 x 12 cms I usually create etching prints from. I have gone for a larger printing plate so I can add more detail. Below is a photo of the plate which has a coating of hard wax to protect the plate when it has its first dip in the acid bath early next month. The first acid bath lasts about 15 minutes which allows the outline of the drawing to be defined more strongly on the plate.

White Lion etching plate (17 x 26.5 cms)

Yesterday, I visited Bury Art Museum to swap a small number of etchings for the shop that is based on the first floor. One of the prints I submitted was of the cage at Lyme Park.

“The Cage at Lyme Park” Etching Aquatint (c) Neil Robinson

The museum has a collection of paintings by JMW Turner. One of which is this work I saw in the main gallery (see below)

Calais Sands at Low Water: Poissards Collecting Bait by Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (Bury Art Museum collection)