National Museums Liverpool Blog - Laura

Vikky Evans-Hubbard plays the role of Diane Nash

As usual our museums are packed with things to keep you busy this bank holiday weekend, but a new performance at the International Slavery Museum on Monday 5 May is definitely worth a special trip.

Keep your eyes on the prize tells the inspiring story of Diane Nash and her involvement in the civil rights movement in America during the 1960s. There are two performances at 2 and 3pm.

Or if like me you are planning a very lazy long weekend then let BBC's Woman's Hour bring highlights of the performance to you. They are doing a series on the treasures of National Museums Liverpool as picked by female members of staff. Watch this space for the others to follow throughout 2008.

Terry standing next to his painting RS Thomas Triptych.

Standing Stones, a display of work by Liverpool-artist Terry Duffy, opened today at the Walker Art Gallery.

The display consists of two diptychs and a triptych, forms that work really well with the symmetry and the classic architecture of the gallery.

Standing Stones is on show at the Walker Art Gallery until 8 June 2008 and will be followed by further exhibitions of Terry's work in various locations throughout the city during Capital of Culture.

Living Memorial to Ken Sara-Wiwa outside the International Slavery Museum

Today is the last day to catch the Living Memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa outside the International Slavery Museum.

The 12ft high and 18ft long Nigerian steel bus, created by artist Sokari Douglas-Camp CBE, is carved with a direct quotation from Ken Saro-Wiwa. The quotation ‘I ACCUSE THE OIL COMPANIES OF PRACTISING GENOCIDE AGAINST THE OGONI’ is accompanied by the names of Saro-Wiwa and his eight colleagues who were executed on 10 November 1995 following their campaign to stop the environmental devastation of the Ogoni area of the Niger Delta in Nigeria by multinational oil companies.

Dance the Guns to Silence, an evening of poetry, music and activism will be held at the Sara-Wiwa bar in the Liverpool Guild of Students from 8pm tonight.

Gallery attendants Brian and Dave meet Aled Jones at the Walker Art Gallery

BBC’s Songs of Praise filmed at the Walker Art Gallery yesterday. Presenter Aled Jones met up with local artist Cecelia Matson who introduced him to the gallery by showing him work by her favourite artist and source of inspiration JMW Turner. Cecelia told Aled how the Walker was a great place for contemporary artists to learn from old masters.

The feature, which is part of a programme dedicated to Capital of Culture will be aired on Sunday 4 May.

There will be more Turners to feast on over at the Lady Lever Art Gallery this summer when Masterpiece Watercolours and Drawings opens from 28 June- 9 November 2008.  The exhibition features other big names such as Constable, Burne-Jones and Cox and offers a rare opportunity to see a selection of the gallery’s most delicate artworks.

The Lord Mayor shows off his handiwork

We invited press to the Walker Art Gallery yesterday to see the Lord Mayor of Liverpool making his mark to the fabulous Liverpool Cityscape. We all held our breath as he sprayed in the clock hands of the Municipal building to point to the time 12.07. But as the picture above shows he didn't go over the lines and did a perfect job!

The time 12.07 was specially chosen to represents the year 1207 when Liverpool was granted its own status in King John’s Royal Charter, an important part of the city's history covered in Magical History Tour at the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Ben Johnson has been working on the painting in front of a live audience for nearly six weeks. The last day for his public residency is 7 March 2008. The finished painting will be revealed in the exhibition Ben Johnson’s Liverpool Cityscape 2008 and the World Panorama Series.

Black achievers wall, International Slavery Museum © Redman Design/ International Slavery Museum

Judges from The Art Fund Prize visited the International Slavery Museum today. The panel have the tricky job of deciding which of the ten nominated UK museums and galleries demonstrate the most originality, imagination and excellence.

Fingers crossed they have enjoyed their visit today and that we are shortlisted to the final four (to be announced in early April). The winner will be announced on Thursday 22 May at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London during Museum and Galleries Month 2008.

If you are one of the thousands of visitors who have visited the International Slavery Museum since it opened in August and think it deserves this prize then add your comment on The Art Fund Prize website.

MP Andy Burnham and family in Walker Art Gallery

Even the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport gets time off to enjoy a family day out. I got this photograph while Andy Burnham visited the Walker Art Gallery with his wife and three children. They had already been to Big Art where the girls had been fitted out with fairy costumes. When I found them the family were absorbed by Ben Johnson’s Liverpool Cityscape and trying to spot Everton’s football ground.

Yupin shows photographer the Lady Lever Art Gallery's collection of Chinese snuff bottles

I met Dr Yupin Chung at the Lady Lever Art Gallery today. Yupin has a busy job as both curator and researcher for the gallery’s Chinese collections. Today Yupin was being interviewed by the Daily Post for an article on her work. Hopefully this will help shed some light not just on the fabulous collection at the gallery but also on the work Yupin is doing to interpret it.

Lord Leverhulme began to collecting Chinese art in the 1890s. He orginally bought blue-and-white and enamelled porcelains of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) as furnishings for his various homes but they are now on display for us all to see in the gallery.

Yupin is working towards an electronic catalogue of the collection to be made available to the public as a web-based resource in 2009.

Fierce!

Local press attended a preview this morning of the lovely exhibition Victorian Visions, which opens to the public at the Lady Lever Art Gallery on Saturday.

There are some big names in the world of Victorian photography included in the exhibition such as Julia Margaret Cameron and Francis Frith. But my favourite work is by Lady Hawarden, an artist I had never heard of before this exhibition.

What I love about her photographs is their intensity. Hawarden was a master of composition and used light and shadow to give her images an amazing elegance. I also love the models. She used her own daughters who appear to be experts at striking dark, moody poses. Their gloominess may well have more to do with being forced to pose for hours for a perfectionist mother than artistic expression, but they might have been comforted to know that their intense and unusual photographs could easily be on the pages of modern day fashion spreads. Contestants of America’s Next Top Model should watch and learn!

I had the chance to have a sneak preview of Ben Johnson’s Liverpool Cityscape last night. Blocking my view of the painting were several famous faces including the artist Peter Blake whose studio is next door to Ben’s and Weakest Link presenter Anne Robinson who came to see the portrait of her home city.

Seeing the work close up really enables you to appreciate the amazing amount of work and effort that goes into each tiny detail. I chatted to Ben’s assistants who help produce the separate computerised drawings of each building in the painting. We discussed the enormous amount of time that goes into each key building, some taking several weeks. One mentioned that a few months ago they had worried about how they would possibly get such an enormous painting finished on time. Thankfully he seemed quite confident it was all on schedule now!

Visitors to the Walker Art Gallery will get the chance to see Ben complete the artwork from 28 January - 7 March 2008.

Ben with his wife Sheila and his assistants