Spa town plans to attract more visitors as magnet for art lovers

As part of the ambitious £500,000 plans to attract more visitors, revealed in a report by Harrogate Council’s curator of art, the Royal Pump Room Museum would be given an extensive refurbishment, pop-up exhibitions would take place across the district and the local authority’s collection of 20,000 objects of human history and 2,500 objects of fine art would be put online to rival other major galleries across Britain.

The report aims to capitalise on record visitor numbers recorded in 2011, with figures revealing a 300 per cent increase at Harrogate’s Mercer Gallery for its Atkinson Grimshaw exhibition – a rise equivalent to a year’s worth of visitors in just three months.

And it is hoped the overhaul will turn Harrogate’s museums into a hub for cultural activity across North Yorkshire, linking with other galleries and art groups in the county.

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The continued rise in visitor numbers expected to stem from the move would prove a huge boost to Harrogate’s vital visitor economy.

Jane Sellars, curator of art at the council, told the Yorkshire Post: “We have had a brilliant year and the challenge for us now is to build on that success in the future.

“We want to raise the profiles of all of our collections.

“Improvement to our digital access is very significant.

“We currently don’t have anyway of searching our collections on a website and that is what we want people to be able to do.

“We are also looking at new community involvement and are particularly wanting to involve residents in local aural history projects.

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“We have some very interesting things planned for next year already and this is an exciting way forward for the whole district.”

The Mercer Art Gallery, which the council owns alongside the Royal Pump Room Museum and Knaresborough Castle, re-opened this year following a major refurbishment on its 20th anniversary.

To mark the event, it hosted the first exhibition of Yorkshire-born Victorian artist John Atkinson Grimshaw for 30 years, featuring well-known paintings such as Silver Moonlight from 1880 and Nightfall Down The Thames from 1863-93.

The exhibition, which runs until September 4, has received widespread acclaim from across the country and is continuing to draw thousands of visitors into the spa town during the summer months.

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As part of the new plans, which have been agreed by cabinet member for cultural services Councillor Caroline Bayliss, the Royal Pump Room Museum would be subjected to a £250,000 overhaul similar in scale to the three-month work at the Mercer Gallery earlier this year.

Pop-up exhibitions are also being planned by museum chiefs, featuring works from the council’s art and costume collections placed in buildings across the district ranging from shop windows to the Royal Hall.

A pilot pop-up exhibition of Nidderdale watercolours at the King Street Studios, Pateley Bridge, has already taken place.

The planned overhaul is to be paid for largely by external grants.

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The council is currently applying for £150,000 for a three-year programme between 2013 and 2015.

An application for an ArtFund Renew grant of £100,000 is also currently being drawn up to help fund the improvements.

Meanwhile Scarborough’s Spa Complex yesterday reported a 240 per cent increase in online ticket sales since it joined online social networking sites Facebook and Twitter last year, with nearly 4,000 transactions being made.

Gallery among Gems of the North

HARROGATE lays claim to being one of the main artistic destinations of the north.

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The Mercer Art Gallery alone attracts more than 22,000 visitors each year, and a major coup came in 2007 when it held an exhibition showcasing the work of celebrated Victorian artist William Powell Frith.

Most of the council’s collection is at the Mercer, Royal Pump Room and Knaresborough Castle.