National Treasures

Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire at the Laing Art Gallery, marked the first time the painting was displayed in the North East. The themes of industry and nostalgia present in the painting are particularly relevant to Newcastle and allowed the exhibition to link two great rivers of the Industrial Revolution: the Thames and the Tyne.

The exhibition Turner: Art, Industry and Nostalgia featured over 60 works from several lenders which reference Turner’s wider practice and evoke ideas around the industrial landscape. It included another 25 works by Turner as well as a group of rare ship and boat models and artworks from artists including L.S. Lowry, Tacita Dean, Chris Killip, John Kippin and Paul Dolan.

Exciting activities in the community ran alongside the exhibition. Laing’s young people’s group, L-INK, worked with local communities with lived experience of the region’s industrial past, sharing ideas and memories to create artworks and events. Workshops for school children explored maritime history and the repurposing and recycling of materials, mirroring the Temeraire’s fate in being broken up for scrap.