The Hatton Gallery is Newcastle University's art gallery

Art gallery

An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...

 in Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and is a part of the Great North Museum

Great North Museum

The Great North Museum is a visitor attraction in Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. It features two venues: the Great North Museum: Hancock and the Hatton Gallery...

. It is based in the University's Fine Art Building.

History

The Hatton Gallery was founded in 1925, by the King Edward VII School of Art, Armstrong College, Durham University

Durham University

The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

 (Newcastle University's Department of Fine Art), in honour of Richard George Hatton, a professor at the School of Art.

Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton (artist)

Richard William Hamilton, CH was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the...

's seminal Man, Machine and Motion was first exhibited at the Hatton in 1955 before travelling to the ICA, so the Hatton can claim to have been the birthplace of Pop Art

Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...

.

In 1997, the University authorities voted to close down the gallery, but a widespread public campaign against the closure, leading to a £250,000 donation by Dame Catherine Cookson

Catherine Cookson

Dame Catherine Cookson DBE was a British author. She became the United Kingdom's most widely read novelist, with sales topping 100 million, while retaining a relatively low profile in the world of celebrity writers...

, ensured the survival of the gallery.

As part of the Great North Museum

Great North Museum

The Great North Museum is a visitor attraction in Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. It features two venues: the Great North Museum: Hancock and the Hatton Gallery...

 project, the gallery's future is secure. Unlike the university's other collections, the Hatton Gallery will not be transferred into the Hancock, but be staying put in the Fine Art Building.

Exhibitions

The permanent collection comprises over 3,500 works, some dating back to the 14th century. These works of art include paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings. It houses the Merzbarn - the only surviving Merz

Merz

Merz is a German surname and may refer to:* Aaron Merz , American football player* Alfred Merz , Austrian-German oceanologist* Charles Hesterman Merz , Pioneer of the National Grid UK...

 construction by Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...

, which was rescued from a barn near Elterwater

Elterwater

Elter Water is a small lake that lies half a mile south-east of the village of Elterwater. Both are situated in the valley of Great Langdale in the English Lake District...

 in 1965and is now permanently installed in the gallery. Other important artists represented in the collection include Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon (painter)

Francis Bacon , was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. Bacon's painterly but abstract figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds...

, Victor Pasmore

Victor Pasmore

Edwin John Victor Pasmore was a British artist and architect. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s.-Biography:...

, William Roberts

William Roberts (painter)

William Roberts was a British painter of groups of figures and portraits, and was a war artist.-Education and early career:Son of an Irish carpenter and his wife, Roberts was born in Hackney, London...

 and Paolo di Giovanni

Paolo di Giovanni Fei

Paolo di Giovanni Fei was a painter of the Sienese school.He came to Siena from San Quirico, Castelvecchio, held public positions in Siena from 1369 and was first mentioned in the Sienese register of painters in 1389. His earliest signed and dated work is of 1381...

.

Important exhibitions held in the gallery in recent years include No Socks: Kurt Schwitters and the Merzbarn (1999) and William Roberts (2004)

External links

• Hatton Gallery at Tyne and Wear Museums
  Tyne and Wear Museums
  Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums is a regional group of United Kingdom national museums located across the Tyne and Wear area of north-east England. They have been administered by a joint board of local authorities since the abolition of the Tyne and Wear Metropolitan County Council...