Leeds Art Gallery

Leeds Art Gallery is a municipal art museum in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, that holds one of the most significant public collections of British art outside London. Founded in 1876 and opened in 1888, the gallery is part of the Leeds Museums & Galleries group and is housed in a Grade II listed Victorian building. Its collection of 20th-century British art was designated by the British government in 1997 as being of "national importance." The gallery occupies a prominent position on Victoria Square in the city centre, where it functions as a cultural anchor within a larger complex that includes Leeds Central Library and the Henry Moore Institute.

The gallery originated from an executive committee formed in 1876 by the Leeds Fine Art Society, whose members included the Marquess of Ripon as president, honorary secretary John Joseph Willson, Rev. John Gott, painter Atkinson Grimshaw, and architect William Henry Thorp. The gallery was constructed between 1886 and 1888 as an extension to the Municipal Buildings to the west, designed by Thorp. It opened on 3 October 1888 as Leeds City Art Gallery, funded by public subscription raised in honour of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. The Mayor, Alderman Archibald Witham Scarr, presided at the opening, with artist Hubert von Herkomer in attendance. The original sculpture gallery, now the Tiled Hall Café, was adapted from the adjacent public library's Reading Room and was among the first spaces in Leeds to be illuminated by electricity. In 1912, the Leeds Art Collections Fund was established to support acquisitions; by its centenary exhibition in 2012, it had helped acquire 430 works for the city. A major reorientation occurred in 1982, when the entrance was moved from the east to the south on The Headrow, and a sculpture extension was added. This development coincided with the conversion of three Victorian houses on Cookridge Street into the Henry Moore Institute, linked to the gallery by a bridge. Queen Elizabeth II opened the new building on 26 November 1982. A £1.5 million renovation in 2007 restored the Victorian Tiled Hall as a café and bookshop linking the gallery and library, and renamed the former Queen's Gallery as the Arnold Ziff Gallery after a local businessman and arts patron. The gallery closed again in January 2016 for extensive renovation, reopening on 13 October 2017. This work uncovered the glass roof of the Central Court Gallery, which had been concealed by a false ceiling, and added an abstract wall painting by Lothlein Götz to the Victorian staircase.

The Leeds Art Gallery collection encompasses British art from the 18th century to the present, with particular strength in 19th- and 20th-century works. The holdings comprise approximately 1,300 oil paintings, around 3,000 English watercolours, and roughly 2,000 prints, alongside European paintings, sculptures, prints, and watercolours from the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection's modern and contemporary sculpture holdings are especially notable. The Leeds Sculpture Collections, jointly managed with the Henry Moore Institute, constitute one of the most important public collections of British sculpture in the United Kingdom. This sculpture collection contains over 800 objects and approximately 400 works on paper, supplemented by the extensive Archive of Sculptors' Papers. Recent collecting activity has focused on acquiring conceptual, performative, photographic, and other expanded forms of sculpture from the 1960s and 1970s that remain underrepresented in public collections. Works from the sculpture collections are also displayed at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall.

The gallery's visitor materials identify ten key works for a short visit, spanning from 1858 to 1993: Edward Armitage's Retribution (1858), Auguste Rodin's The Age of Bronze (1877, cast 1906), Evelyn De Morgan's The Valley of Shadows (1899), Jacob Epstein's Maternity (1910), Wyndham Lewis's Praxitella (1921), Henry Moore's Reclining Figure (1929), Francis Bacon's Painting (1950), Tony Cragg's Postcard Flag (Union Jack) (1981), Antony Gormley's Maquette for Brick Man (1986), and Paula Rego's The Artist in her Studio (1993). Other significant paintings on display include William Holman Hunt's The Shadow of Death (1870-73), Atkinson Grimshaw's Boar Lane, Leeds (1881), Elizabeth Thompson's Scotland Forever! (1881), James Tissot's The Bridesmaid (1883-85), John William Waterhouse's The Lady of Shalott Looking at Lancelot (c.1894), and Graham Sutherland's The Tin Mine (1942). Sculpture holdings include Barbara Hepworth's Hieroglyph and additional Henry Moore works such as Mother and Child. Outside the entrance stands Moore's bronze Reclining Woman: Elbow (1981), while the entrance hall contains Leeds' oldest civic sculpture, a 1712 marble statue of Queen Anne.

The gallery building is a Grade II listed structure in Victorian architectural style, owned and administered by Leeds City Council. It is linked on the west to Leeds Central Library and on the east via a bridge to the Henry Moore Institute. The original design featured a central court of two storeys with a glass roof and a Burmantoft Property faience fountain; a floor was later inserted to create additional space. The 1982 redevelopment moved the entrance to the south on The Headrow and added a sculpture extension. The 2007 renovation opened up the Victorian Tiled Hall, which connects the gallery and library, and created first-floor direct access to the Art Library. The 2016-17 renovation revealed the original glass roof of the Central Court Gallery. The building includes a ground-floor lecture theatre named after Henry Moore. The gallery fronts Victoria Square, where the city's war memorial stands at the eastern end; the square's raised entrance provides a speakers' dais that makes it a regular venue for rallies and demonstrations.

Leeds Art Gallery is located in the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, on Victoria Square. It is owned and administered by Leeds City Council as part of the Leeds Museums & Galleries group. The gallery operates in conjunction with the adjacent Henry Moore Institute, with which it shares sculpture collections and curatorial responsibilities for the Leeds Sculpture Collections. The Tiled Hall serves as a café and bookshop linking the gallery to Leeds Central Library. The Henry Moore Lecture Theatre within the building hosts cultural events. The official website provides current visiting information.