Williamson Art Gallery

Pete Hoida
2024-02-16 08:00 - 2024-12-21 17:00 UTC | Williamson Art Gallery, Slatey Rd, Oxton, Birkenhead, Merseyside, CH43 4UE, United Kingdom
Gallery 11 is currently home to an exhibition of work by Birkenhead-born artist Pete Hoida (1944-2023).
The paintings of Birkenhead-born Hoida are known for strong colour relationships alongside tonal subtlety and a unique approach to textures. Hoida studied Landscape Architecture followed by Art School at Hammersmith, priory to graduating from the extended diploma course at Goldsmiths. His work has been authoritatively endorsed in essays by Mel Gooding and Chris Stephens, and is well regarded by his peers. Hoida lived and worked in Stroud, for over 40 years in the same hillside studio.
The Williamson has acquired his painting ‘Uisghe’ for our collections, but all other paintings currently on display are for sale (however, please note that the are not eligible for the Own Art Scheme).
Please note this exhibition may not be accessible when meetings are in progress.
Own Art

David Clapham: The River Runs Through
2024-04-06 10:00 - 2024-06-15 17:00
Clapham’s recent work has been inspired by views of places he has lived in London and Portugal. These paintings explore the sense of how the landscape dominates the everyday experiences of life in these places, united by the common theme of the river.
Two views in particular dominate these current works. Clapham’s studio in central Portugal, where all of these works have been made over the past three years, overlooks the Ceira valley. The density of the mountainous forests contrasts with the views from Clapham’s recent London residence in Canary Wharf, a severe built environment of its high quality of marble, granite, and glass. These two contrasting views have, in their separate ways, both dominated Clapham’s recent lived experience. With canvases divided into full-scale windows the views they represent are divided, sliced into contrasting images, yet eventually reconciled. In this way Clapham explores how combinations of colours and textures may trigger unlooked-for emotional responses.
The most recent work combines these images with the black-and-white news coverage of the Ukrainian conflict that has dominated the news cycle in recent years.

Going To The Match On Tour
2024-04-19 10:00 - 2024-07-27 17:00
Going to the Match, painted in 1953, is LS Lowry’s best-known and most popular picture. Although he painted football-themed scenes before and after this date it is Going to the Match which has become iconic – an enduring representation of what match day means to fans.
The 1953 work shows fans arriving for a Bolton Wanderers game at their former home, Burnden Park. The painting’s iconic status has been recognised and loved by visitors of all ages: especially those who love football and those who celebrate this quintessentially Northern experience.
This hugely important and much-loved work of art had been on public display at The Lowry, Salford since it opened in 2000, courtesy of a loan by the then owners the Professional Footballers Association (PFA). Following a high-profile campaign, Going to the Match was purchased by The Lowry in Salford for The Lowry Collection at the Modern British & Irish Art Sale at Christie’s in London in October 2022, thanks to the generous support of The Law Family Charitable Foundation. The painting returned to public display at The Lowry in November 2022 as part of Salford’s Lowry Collection and The Lowry is now working with galleries and venues across the North West to ensure that the piece can be enjoyed by the widest possible audience across the region. Supported by a £95,000 grant from Arts Council England through its National Lottery Project Grants programme and additional support from the Sir Bobby Charlton Foundation, the tour will mean this iconic painting can be enjoyed by the widest possible audience across the region.
The painting is being displayed at the Williamson alongside other works by Lowry and a selection of pictures from the Williamson’s collection which place Lowry in the wider context of painting in Northern England in the mid 20th Century.
#LowryGTTM
Image Credit: LS Lowry, Going to the Match, 1953
© The Estate of L.S. Lowry. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2024

At The Match: Book Launch & Artist's Talk
2024-05-23 18:00 - 20:00
Book Tickets
To celebrate LS Lowry’s famous painting ‘Going to the Match’ being on display to the public here at Williamson Museum and Art Gallery, photographer Colin McPherson will be staging a talk contrasting visual representations of football supporters now and in the past.
McPherson will draw on his own photography featured in ‘At The Match’, a newly-published compendium of images of contemporary football culture from the photography archive of When Saturday Comes magazine, to discuss how the rituals and routines of going to the match have changed through the generations.
‘At The Match’ showcases the work of Wirral-based McPherson and his colleagues Simon Gill and Paul Thompson have made over the last 20 years covering matches across the United Kingdom and Ireland at all levels from international to grassroots football. Copies of the book will be available for purchase on the night.
At the event, McPherson will also present a new piece of work inspired by Lowry’s masterpiece. Titled ‘Going to the Match (after Lowry), 2024’ it is a reimagining of the painting, taken this year at Bolton Wanderers’ Toughsheet Community Stadium (the original was a representation of the club’s former Burnden Park home).
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Colin McPherson is a photographer, filmmaker and writer whose work has appeared in When Saturday Comes since the magazine’s launch in 1986. Over the last 35 years, his photography has been published and exhibited internationally and he worked for 20 years on assignments and commissions for The Independent from 1995-2016. He is a member of the Merseyside-based SixBySix photography collective and contributes regularly to Nutmeg, the Scottish football periodical and The Blizzard.
