The Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool shows a year round programme of contemporary and visual art exhibitions and events. Including solo and group displays together with talks, events and educational activities. The new Spring 2023 Exhibition is now open.

Opening Times

• Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4.45pm.
• Please note: last entry to the gallery is 4.20pm.
• Closed Sunday, Monday and Bank Holidays
• Admission is Free
• More about facilities here

See world class art on display in Grundy Art Gallery’s new summer programme

ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois

8 July – 9 September 2023

GRUNDY ART GALLERY and ARTIST ROOMS are bringing the work of internationally acclaimed French-American artist Louise Bourgeois to Blackpool for the very first time.

ARTIST ROOMS presents the work of international artists in solo exhibitions drawn from a national touring collection jointly owned by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland. Its programme reaches audiences across the UK and is developed through local partnerships.

It’s a brilliant opportunity for the people of Blackpool to experience world class art on their doorstep. This sees the Grundy continuing to honour its founding mission to show the best art of the day.

About Louise Bourgeois

Born in Paris in 1911, Bourgeois settled in New York in 1938, where she remained for the rest of her life, continuing to make art until her death at the age of 98.

Bourgeois’s art was closely bound up with her life, and she used art as a way to make sense of her experiences. Her sculpture, drawing, and writing are characterised by emotional honesty, as she retold the memories and stories that shaped her life. Using different forms and materials including marble, bronze, latex, and fabric, Bourgeois made work that is personal, provocative, vulnerable, and raw; work that reaches out to us with a powerful immediacy more than a decade after her death.

The Exhibition

This exhibition focuses on works produced during the last 20 years of her life, a period of extraordinary creativity, during which Bourgeois re-examined many of her lifelong concerns to create a body of powerful new work exploring identity, gender, childhood, family and memory. Her use of textiles, including age-worn garments from her household and personal history, give her late sculptures a sense of intimacy and mortality.

Bourgeois is perhaps best-known for her large-scale spider sculptures including Maman 1999, which was created for the opening of Tate Modern in 2000.  A symbol and representation of motherhood, and her own mother in particular, who was a weaver and the manager of the family’s antique tapestry restoration business, the spider is a recurring motif throughout Bourgeois’s work.

On Display in Blackpool

And for the first time on this current tour of ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois, visitors will be able to see one of these monumental spider sculptures for themselves when Spider 1994 (above) occupies one of Grundy’s side galleries. This is one of several important loans from The Easton Foundation in the exhibition, and will provide a mesmerising addition to what is already a world-class display of one of the 20^th century’s most important artists.

ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois at Grundy Art Gallery will be supported by a public programme of talks, workshops and events. Please check Grundy’s website and social media for more information.

FORECOURT COMMISSION: FIONA GRADY: ILLUMINATED FROM WITHIN

Extended until further notice

Born into a family of mathematicians Grady always employs a systematic approach to intervene within a space. Through her use of light, colour, shape, surface and scale, her colourful geometric artworks transform their setting and provide a unique response to the specifics of the place in which they are located.

With the lighter, brighter and longer days of spring upon us, Grundy has extended the display of Fiona Grady’s Illuminated from Within until further notice. Through her use of light, colour, surface and scale, the artist’s colourful geometric artwork transforms the setting of Grundy’s forecourt. Activated by changes in the direction and intensity of daylight Illuminated from Within quietly marks the passing of time whilst also providing a dynamic contribution to Grundy’s 2023 spring programme.

Grundy Art Gallery’s work recognised by increased funding

In November 2022, Grundy Art Gallery announced that it’s to remain part of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio programme 2023-2026 – to the value of £249,000 over the three years.

This funding will support the development and delivery of an exciting year-round programme of relevant, meaningful and high quality contemporary art exhibitions and events, taking place on and off-site.

Image credits, left to right:

• Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Blackpool Light of My Life (2021), Grundy Art Gallery Co-commission with Blackpool Illuminations and Lightpool Festival Photo: Jonathan Lynch, © the artist, Courtesy Grundy Art Gallery
• The pARTnership exhibition banner at Grundy Art Gallery, 2022. Photo Matt Wilkinson. Courtesy Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool Council
• Chloe MacFarlane, copyright the artist, Private Collection, Photo Matt Wilkson. Courtesy Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool Council

Grundy will continue its founding mission to show the best art of the day to the people of Blackpool and beyond. The programme will enable the gallery to enact its vision to be a beacon for contemporary art in the North West.

Grundy Art Gallery is also delighted to receive an uplift on previous years’ NPO funding, specifically to support the development and delivery of the pARTnership.

It’s delivered via a collaboration between Grundy Art Gallery, The New Langdale (Blackpool Council’s daytime service for people with a Learning Disability), Venture Arts in Manchester and Fylde-Coast based artist Tina Dempsey. This project provides bespoke professional development to artists with a Learning Disability to enable them to develop their own individual creativity. The project also presents this work in professional contemporary art settings. Recent exhibitions of this work have taken place at Grundy Art Gallery and Abingdon Studios in Blackpool. And at The Horsfall and The Manchester Contemporary in Manchester.

Grundy newsletter

To keep up to date and find out more about the Grundy’s exhibitions and events sign up to the Grundy newsletter via the Grundy website www.thegrundy.org. Also keep an eye on the website and watch out for posts via Grundy’s social media channels.

Grundy Art Gallery celebrates 110 years

Grundy Art Gallery unveiled an exciting calendar of events to commemorate its 110th anniversary in 2021. 

The gallery and its collection established in 1911. It came via a financial gift and donation of over 30 paintings by local brothers John and Cuthbert Grundy. 2021 therefore marks the 110th Anniversary of the gallery opening its doors to the people of Blackpool and beyond.

• Explore the history of Grundy Art Gallery

The Blackpool coat of arms – emblazoned with ‘Progress’ – is embedded in brickwork above the front door. Guided by this motto, the gallery continues to honour its founding ethos. It shows a year-round programme of high quality contemporary art exhibitions and events. Despite the ongoing challenges of COVID-19, 2021 was no exception.  

110th Anniversary Logo 

Grundy Art Gallery’s 110th anniversary logo was inspired by an ink stamp, historically used to identify items brought into Grundy’s permanent collection. It also echoes the design of Blackpool’s world famous sticks of rock.

Twenty-six artworks for UK collections, including Grundy Art Gallery

fig-futures, a collecting scheme supported by Arts Council England, Art Fund, and Outset Contemporary Art Fund, has acquired 26 new art works for collections across the UK.  Pictured below: Rebecca Birch, The Yellowing Part 1, 2018, Photograph by Jonathan Lynch, Grundy Art Gallery.

fig-futures spent a year touring the UK, done 16 week long shows, in four galleries, and several community spaces with 18 artists. The major set of acquisitions will benefit several areas across the UK, from Blackpool to Cornwall, via East Anglia and the Midlands.

Artworks acquired range from performance works to films, large scale sculptures to photography. Plus paintings to durational dance pieces, diversifying the collections the artworks will go to. The total sum of the acquisitions is in the region of £80,000.00.

Contemporary artworks into public collections

fig-futures was initiated by Art Fund and Outset Contemporary Art Fund to develop a new collecting scheme for the acquisition of contemporary artworks into public collections. Plus providing artist and curatorial development opportunities for galleries and practitioners outside the capital.

Reflecting Blackpool as a place

The works being collected variously address Blackpool as place. They speak to our policy of collecting high quality contemporary art. These acquisitions provide an important legacy of our fig-futures partnership, but more importantly provide an exciting and relevant curatorial resource for our future exhibition and event programming.

Artist Ruth Beale, said: “I’m really pleased that Grundy has chosen to acquire Library of Future Societies (Blackpool). It’s a living, changing work. Made for, and by, Blackpool.

“Each time it’s displayed, it will be remade with books held in Blackpool Libraries. I think that libraries – and galleries – can be litmus papers to what is valued in society. It’s a reflection of the library service, the readers, and the books that are in circulation.”

Curator of Grundy Art Gallery

Paulette Terry Brien became the gallery’s curator in November 2017.

Paulette has more than 25 years of experience working within contemporary visual art. She’s well known for raising the profile of the North West region, on a national and international level.

Paulette is co-founder and co-director of The International 3, a contemporary art gallery based in Salford. There, she delivered a year round programme of exhibitions and events. Plus being instrumental in developing projects such as Manchester’s annual contemporary art fair, The Manchester Contemporary.

Paulette comes to the Grundy with a strong track record of identifying and nurturing emerging talent, commissioning and curating high quality contemporary art exhibitions for both gallery and non-gallery settings. Over the years, her wealth of experience has supported hundreds of emerging artists. Many of whom have gone on to achieve regional, national and international recognition.

As well as providing peer support, Paulette has also been successful on many occasions in brokering the acquisition of work by regional artists into major public and private collections, such as the Arts Council Collection and Whitworth Art Gallery’s collection.

Paulette is thrilled to be the new curator of the Grundy. She’s keen to continue to champion regional artists from the North West.

More about Grundy Art Gallery

Grundy Art Gallery is Blackpool’s art gallery. It offers a year round programme of contemporary and visual art exhibitions and events. There are solo and group exhibitions together with talks, workshops and educational activities.

Brothers John and Cuthbert Grundy founded The Grundy Art Gallery in 1908. Now displayed in a Grade II listed Carnegie building. It’s been at the centre of cultural and artistic life in the town for over 100 years. It began with the ambition to show the best art of the day to the people of Blackpool. This sentiment remains at the heart of today, as a leading contemporary art gallery in the North West.

• Explore the history of Grundy Art Gallery

Today it includes works by established artists such as Martin Creed, Tracey Emin and Laura Ford. Gilbert and George, Brian Griffiths, Augustus John, Haroon Mirza and Eric Ravilious. It also has works by regionally based emerging talent such as Joe Fletcher Orr and Louise Giovanelli.

The Grundy aims to inspire audiences through an ambitious and varied year-round exhibitions programme. It draws on the unique and invigorating context and heritage of Blackpool. For instance exploring the space between contemporary art, entertainment and popular culture.

The Grundy Collection

Exhibitions and displays frequently incorporate pieces from our collection. It began with a bequest by the founding brothers and contains an eclectic range of art and other items. From furniture to ceramics, to netsuke ornaments to Victorian oil paintings. Artists include Craigie Aitchison, Ruth Claxton and Martin Creed. Laura Ford, Augustus John, Eric Ravilious and Gilbert and George amongst others.

Grundy is part of Blackpool Council’s Arts Service. It develops and delivers arts projects which engage Blackpool’s residents, communities and visitors in the arts. The service supports the town’s arts community, placing the arts the core of Blackpool’s unique and important cultural environment.

The gallery is an Accredited Museum. It also receives funding from Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation and from the John Ellerman Foundation.