Help us tell a crucial part of the collection's rich history
We are incredibly excited to open Vision & Reality: 100 Years of Contemporary Art in Wakefield on 20 November. The exhibition will highlight how ambitious Wakefield has been in the 100 years it has collected art, and what a vital, living resource of national significance the collection is now proving to be.
This wonderful celebration of Wakefield’s art collection was developed in response to the disruption to our programme caused by Covid-19. Our curatorial team has built a fascinating show in record-time, revealing many never before told stories.
Owing to the short time-frame and limited budget, we need your support to ensure a number of key works can go on display, some for the first time in many years. We also want to be able to bring the exhibition to many more people digitally through specially devised content on our website and social media platforms.
A number of paintings, each playing a part in telling the rich history of Wakefield’s art collection, urgently need to undergo conservation before they can go on display.
Please, if you can, DONATE NOW
With your support we can ensure these important works can go on display this autumn in Vision & Reality and that many more people can find out about the fascinating stories behind Wakefield’s impressive art collection. No matter the size of your donation, every penny really does make difference and will ensure these paintings can be enjoyed once again.
Please, if you can, DONATE NOW
Walter Sickert, Ethel Sands Descending a Staircase in Newington, 1920
Walter Sickert’s Ethel Sands Descending a Staircase at Newington (1920) offers a glimpse into the life of Ethel Sands, a well-known painter, hostess and socialite of the 20th century who gathered artists and writers such as Henry James, Arnold Bennett, and Virginia Woolf in her home in Newington in Oxfordshire.
While studying painting in Paris during 1897, Sands met fellow painter Anna ‘Nan’ Hope Hudson with whom she then developed a long-term romantic relationship. Differing in temperaments – Sands was a social butterfly; Hudson was more introverted and reclused – they spent much of their lives living and travelling between Paris and England to suit both styles of living.
Sands and Hudson were lucky to receive generous inheritance funds which relieved them of the pressure to find a husband and they were able to be financially independent. Their house in Oxfordshire, Newington, became a meeting place for members of the Bloomsbury Group such as Virginia Woolf, who became a friend of theirs. Later on, Sands and Hudson became founder members of the artistic London Group.
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Mildred ’Elsie’ Eldridge, Rain on the Hill, 1936
Mildred ’Elsie’ Eldridge’s Rain on the Hill from 1936, is one of the only paintings in Wakefield’s collection from this period by a female artist.
Eldridge studied at the Royal College of Art in the early 1930s under Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden. She won the prestigious Prix de Rome and a travel scholarship to Italy to further her studies. Eldridge showed frequently at the Royal Academy of Arts and worked on several important mural projects.
This work is one the few early works by Eldridge in public collections and stands as an important example of the artist’s interest in the depiction of working-class women and children in rural landscapes.
Although Eldridge was forced to produce commercial illustrations to pay the bills, her paintings of people exploring the natural world were her true passion and resulted in a large mural in the 1950s that was praised by Stanley Spencer.
During her career, Eldridge would produce several key paintings in the 1930s that mark an early concern for what she saw as a growing alienation between people and nature due to urban industrialisation and the first world war.
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James Tissot, On The Thames (or How Happy I Could Be With Either), c. 1876
Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902) was born in Nantes, France and made his name as an artist from the 1860s onwards, painting scenes of contemporary Parisian society. He moved to London in 1871 where he stayed for a decade, living amongst a community of artists in the St John’s Wood area of London. He maintained a fascination with England throughout his life, even changing his name to James to appeal to the British public and collectors, amongst whom there was growing anti-French sentiment at the time.
Tissot carved out a successful career depicting life in the modern metropolis, focusing in particular on the fashionable young women of the bourgeoisie. While he was often criticised for his pandering and flattery of the nouveau riche, close examination of many of his works reveals subtle depictions of class inequality and the impacts of industrialisation on all sectors of society.
When first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1876 On The Thames (or How Happy I Could Be With Either) was hugely controversial, attracting comments about its questionable subject matter being ’thoroughly and wilfully vulgar’. It features a man and two unchaperoned young women on a champagne picnic on the Thames; no genteel Cambridge punt for these modern young urbanites, instead they embrace the vigour of industrial city life, belching smoke and all. The very self-satisfied looking male character is believed to be based on Tissot himself, while the women are based on Mrs Newton, Tissot’s lover, and her sister.
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