Exhibitions

Human stories from the worst mining disaster in Victorian Britain will be told in a new exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of the tragedy.

Roadkill makes most of us squirm with horror, so it’s comforting to know that some of the animals and birds have served a higher purpose than feast for carrion.

At his forge near Pickering, a blacksmith has spent weeks working out how to make various Viking kitchen items. Three hundred miles away in the west of Scotland, a pewter jewellery specialist is putting the finishing touches to a replica of an elaborate 10th century padlock. And in the Rochdale offices of Dale Air, the team have recently been perfecting the authentic smell of a Viking forest.

The artist behind the centrepiece of a seven-day light and sound spectacular in Hull says it will be as good as work created for the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

THOUGH he is most well known for designing the cover of The Beatles’ album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, pop art pioneer Sir Peter Blake admitted he prefers rival musicians The Beach Boys.

On a wall inside Leeds College of Art’s Blenheim Walk site there is a timeline. The design is striking and it’s beautifully painted, but it’s the names that really stand out.

Retired policeman Glenn Herbert was amazed to discover that photographs of binmen he took as a student 40 years ago were about to go on display in a major Yorkshire gallery – alongside work by some of the world’s greatest photographers. He hadn’t given the pictures a thought for years.

Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire has been dramatically lit up to mark Halloween.

The word “flesh” can conjure a variety of images. Whether human, animal or vegetable, alive or dead, beautiful, ugly, shocking or sensual, flesh provokes a reaction, so it is not surprising that artists over the centuries have drawn inspiration from it and the latest exhibition at York Art Gallery explores this response in a fascinating, thoughtful way.

A MAN WHO was expelled from school and his village before becoming an exiled bankrupt does not sound like an ideal role model for school pupils.

Bowcliffe Hall owner Jonathan Turner opened proceedings for the Yorkshire Buccaneer Pre-War car rally at the Bramham landmark on Saturday.

The internet has revolutionised the lives of artists and makers who can now showcase their work without moving from their back bedroom. It can also spare them the agony of touting their wares around galleries. Still, there are obstacles.

Classic wedding gowns, made famous by some of the country’s greatest screen dramas, are to go on display in a unique exhibition in Harrogate.

BRADFORD and Sheffield have lost out in their bids to host a so-called Great Exhibition of the North - which will be held instead in Newcastle and Gateshead.

A remarkable image of an urban fox taken by a photographer who spent hours every night trying to gain its trust is among the highlights of an exhibition opening in Yorkshire.

With 40 collectors’ stands brimming with antiques and fine arts from across the world, it’s a connoisseur’s dream.

Frenchwoman Magali Fleurot admits she was “a little bit apprehensive” back in 1998 when she was told that her student placement across the Channel would be in Sheffield. “People said: ‘I’m sorry... but you’ll be all right’,” she says. “People have an assumption about the north of England, that it’s all grim...” In the event, she found Sheffield, and the rest of South Yorkshire, “a wonderful shock to the system” and has settled there. Why? “It’s the ‘You all right, love?’, the ‘Ay up sweetheart’, the amazing countryside, the freedom to be who you are without being judged, and most importantly, the people. Nowhere else have I come across such welcoming and kind people; they take you under their wing. My bus journeys are always full of nattering.”

A rotund, black pig sits at the door apparently enjoying the breeze on her leathery skin. Inside, several gnarly toads observe each other from their respective plinths while, across the room, a whippet offers his long nose to the air, eyes squinting in that attitude of self-satisfaction typical to sighthounds. The first surprise on visiting Brendan Hesmondhalgh’s Holmfirth workshop is that these sculptures, so expressive of their living inspirations, are made entirely from memory.

Hull says its tenure as UK City of Culture in 2017 will leave a lasting legacy for the city, Yorkshire, and the country as a whole.