Art & Exhibitions
Manchester Gallery’s Major Revamp Plagued by Delays
Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery, currently closed for major renovation and expansion works, won’t open its doors before next February, the Art Newspaper reports.
The grand reopening was originally scheduled for the fall, but a gallery representative told artnet News there had been some “unavoidable complications” with the historical building, which was completed in 1908 to host the donation of over 55,000 artworks and artefacts by local engineer and philanthropist Sir Joseph Whitworth.
Led by architect firm MUMA (McInnes Usher McKnight Architects), the works will give the much-loved Manchester institution around 400 square meters extra exhibition space, new facilities including a study center and education rooms, a whole new wing, and an “art garden.”
The Whitworth Art collection includes artworks by the likes of Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, and William Blake. Blake’s work is the inspiration for a new piece by Cornelia Parker, which will mark the gallery reopening early next year.
The artist will transform pieces of graphite sampled from the back of a Blake drawing into graphene, an exceptionally strong material first isolated by Manchester-based, Nobel Prize winners Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim in 2004.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook:
Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.
Article topics
