Nothing Beautiful Unless Useful

Delightful exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery looking at the relationship between industrialisation, art and social reform from 1880 to 1940.

The exhibition focused on the Manchester Art Museum, Leeds Art Club and the Mass Observation project and had many works from public collections in the North West.  All three were fascinating but I think they brought the Manchester Art Museum to life best. The idea was to open a gallery in a working class area to educate and provide leisure. Realising a static displays wouldn’t bring people on repeat visits they also organised a series of talks and lectures.

As well as telling these stories there were also some lovely works. I liked the design for a union banner by Walter Crane, a stunning pencil portrait by Emily Ford and a sweet, slightly Greek Eric Gill of two skaters.

The final section picked up the idea that local museums often had a section on their local industry so they included a section on cotton. It looked not only at how it was made but also art works inspired by it such as a portrait of a mill girl. It also included a strange book on cotton which combined rather dreary prints of mills with colourful fairy and mermaid pictures!

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