New Exhibition at Laing Art Gallery - Romance to Realities: The Northern Landscape and Shifting Identities

A new exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery explores over 200 years of landscape painting in the North of England and Scotland, focusing on the diverse and dramatic landscapes of the regions and how artists have depicted not only the world around us, but also our place within it.

Romance to Realities: The Northern Landscape and Shifting Identities will be shown from 5 October 2024 – 26 April 2025 and has been curated in partnership with The Fleming Collection.

For centuries, the landscapes of the North have fascinated artists and this exhibition will focus on how these landscapes —urban, rural, land, sea, and sky— have changed. From the Romanticised visions of early artists to the more complex and sometimes harsh realities captured in later works, the paintings reveal not just the physical changes in the land, but also shifts in societal values and human experience.

The exhibition explores the displacement of communities, the migration to urban centres, and the enduring connection between people and their surroundings, including conceptions of place and belonging. The exhibition invites visitors to reflect on the past, understand the present, and consider the future of these ever-changing landscapes.

Romance to Realities: The Northern Landscape and Shifting Identities includes works by early pioneers of British landscape art such as John Knox, Alexander Nasmyth, and John Martin through to modern and contemporary works by Anne Redpath, L.S. Lowry, and Joan Eardley.

With the earliest work dating from the 1560s, the exhibition charts thematic changes in landscape painting. It explores the idea of landscapes as ‘sublime,’ awe-inspiring and overwhelming, and idealised or ‘picturesque,’ which was tied to notions of national identity. Some of the works examine the realities and everyday details of landscapes shaped by agriculture, industry, and urbanisation in later periods, including figures of labourers working in fields, quarries, and mines. A final section looks at how 20th -century and contemporary landscape paintings reflect the interplay of traditional ideas and contemporary concepts as new media and techniques push artists to address the past in innovative ways.

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with The Fleming Collection and will bring together works from what is considered the finest collection of Scottish art outside public institutions with paintings from the Laing's outstanding permanent collection. It will also include some key loans from regional and national collections, such as J.M.W. Turner’s 1833 watercolour of Inverness (On loan from Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, High Life Highland).

Julie Milne, Chief Curator of Art Galleries for Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, says “We are delighted to be working in partnership with the Fleming Collection on this exhibition which highlights the varied stories of the Northern landscape. 

The Laing and Fleming collections are brought together for the first time to explore the unique and ever-changing nature of the Northern landscape from early romanticised works to more multifaceted and bleaker realities. The exhibition showcases enthralling and absorbing paintings that not only reflect the changes in the landscape but also human experience.”

James Knox, Director of the Fleming Collection, says “It’s a tremendous honour to be working with the Laing, myself and my colleague Theo Albano have been strategizing a comprehensive landscape show for a long time, and to be pairing our collection with the fantastic holdings of the Laing is wonderful. 

We hope we have highlighted some new and exciting perspectives about the Northern Landscape, and I think everyone will take away something different from this show.”

For more information visit Romance to Realities: The Northern Landscape and Shifting Identities.