The Atkinson: The Story So Far

Looking at the theme of storytelling, this exhibition includes highlights from The Atkinson’s collection and the Harris Art Gallery in Preston.

The Harris’s collection is built upon the wealth and personal collections of the textile manufacturers of the town. Richard Newsham, whose father made a fortune from cotton and from banking, left a sizeable bequest of paintings featuring work by the leading British artists of the day, several of which will be included in the exhibition. The Atkinson’s founding collections were acquired from the wealthy middle-class families that retired to the seaside resort of Southport or bought holiday homes in the town. Both collections received important founding bequests of narrative paintings and continued to develop this strand of collecting well into the twentieth century.

The exhibition will look at differing kinds of story-telling, from the illustration of literary and historical texts to coastal and rural genre as well as classical and domestic scenes. The exhibition will also include post-war and contemporary works of art, illustrating the galleries’ strategies for developing the narrative theme.

Key works exploring social and political themes will include Lubaina Himid’s imagined portrait of ‘Hannibal’s Sister’ and Alberta Whittle’s ‘Business As Usual’.