Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield

This was a really nice way to end our weekend in Sheffield. The gallery contains over 300 years of European and British art including David Bomberg, Pablo Picasso and Toulouse Lautrec aswell as contemporary work by artists such as Marc Quinn. They have huge leather sofas to sit and relax whilst you admire the art - perfect!

Angus McBean: Portraits was an excellent exhibition. It included the glamorous photographic portraits of stars such as Audbrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, Shirley Bassey, Ivor Novello, and Noel Coward. McBean is most known for the cover portrait of the Beatles' first album, Please Please Me. I particularly liked his surrealist work from the late 1930s which so imaginative. He also produced some really eccentric pieces such as personalised Christmas cards and the props and artworks used in their composition were on display.

http://www.leninimports.com/angus_mcbean_bio.html

Richard Long: Land and Line
Richard Long is a Landscape Artist and Photographer whos work is inspired by his long solitary walks through landscapes and remote or inhospitable terain. I was really intrerested in going to this exhibition after seeing one of his sculptures at Roche Court during the Summer.

"Walking - as art - provided an ideal means for me to explore relationships between time, distance, geography and measurement," Richard Long. These walks are recorded in photographs, scuptures made along the way and textworks. He often collects objects from his walks and then exhibits them in gallery spaces, a really nice way to record your experiences of being within a langdscape.

http://www.richardlong.org/