Last few days to visit ‘Home is so Sad’ at Beverley Art Gallery

Time is running out to visit the current exhibition at Beverley Art Gallery, ‘Home is so Sad’, which closes on Saturday, 13 May.

The exhibition showcases newly commissioned artwork, alongside pieces from the permanent collections of East Riding Museums and the Philip Larkin Society.

The paintings and installations of Seoul-based artists Yeonkyoung Lee and Sam Robinson reflect an interest in the conventions of painting and the details of daily life. This unique exhibition draws on their research into the cultural history of the East Riding and the idea of ‘home’ as a fluid concept.

Sam Robinson’s paintings for 'Home is So Sad' focus on an anonymous contemporary photograph, taken at dusk from a window in Wilburn Court, Cottingham. This block of flats occupies the site of 200 Hallgate, where Philip Larkin briefly lodged when he first arrived to work at the University of Hull in 1955.

Yeonkyoung Lee’s installation is made up of familiar furniture-like forms. These provide frames and surfaces for her paintings, found objects, and chosen images. Together, these reflect culturally distinct and physically distant times and places, while also finding common ground between them.

Alongside their work, the artists have selected pieces from East Riding Museums and the Philip Larkin Society collection, chosen for their relationship with the everyday and their sense of time and place. ‘Azalea’ by L. M. Mingay and ‘Sunflowers’ by Margaret Parker are striking examples of mid twentieth century British painting and were both purchased by Beverley Art Gallery in 1964, the year of publication of Larkin’s poem, ‘Home is so Sad’. When another of Margaret Parker’s works was acquired in 1966, a local newspaper described the ‘modern art’ as ‘beyond the limit’!

During the exhibition, an additional display relating to Philip Larkin’s life in the East Riding, is on show in the Red Gallery, a collaboration with the Philip Larkin Society.

As part of this display, visitors can see a picturesque Canalside painting by James Neal, with an unusual sketch on the reverse. Labelled ‘Philip Larkin and Me’, it shows two figures walking across Queen Victoria Square in Hull, wearing suits and top hats. Neal and Larkin were neighbours in Hull but are not thought to have been friends, so is this an imagined scene or perhaps a playful experiment?

Beverley Art Gallery is located in the Treasure House on Champney Road. It is open six days a week and admission is free. There is no need to book to attend the exhibition.

For opening hours, and full details of facilities in the Treasure House, visit www.eastridingmuseums.co.uk