Leeds City Museums are showcasing military tailoring in their new exhibition Dressed for Battle. The Lotherton Hall display features an Alexander McQueen outfit which the Friends contributed to.
You can see the McQ woollen coat, belt and boots from Autumn/Winter 2012 collection, whilst learning about how the legacy of war has contributed to fashion.

Alexander McQueen died in 2010 with a reputation as one of the most significant, imaginative, and provocative designers of his generation. Internationally acclaimed, he won ‘British Designer of the Year’ four times between 1996 and 2003 and was also named ‘International Designer of the Year’ by the Council of Fashion Designers in 2003.

The military outfit was designed under Sarah Burton, Creative Director of the label after McQueen’s death. The label has seen considerable success under this leadership with the Alexander McQueen fashion house selected to make the wedding dress for Katherine Middleton when she married Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.
See Dressed for Battle at Lotherton Hall until January 2014
Images: Coat from the McQ label by Alexander McQueen, part of the Autumn / Winter Collection 2012.

After moving from Russia at a young age, he grew up and studied at Leeds School of Art, now Leeds College of Art. A large number of his works are already housed in Leeds Art Gallery but this landscape is a rarity for Kramer, an artist known for his portraiture, making this work all the more significant and being a unique part of the Gallery’s collection.

Kramer’s subject of a bleak northern town is suggestive of the period, as Britain was on the edge of the First World War. The piece shows a country devastated by war, both in the physical landscape and in human life. 

See Kramer’s work, as well as other local artists at Leeds Art Gallery.

The portrait will be added to the City’s collection of portraits of early Leeds industrialists.

Showing an important time in Leeds’ social history, this view of Leeds from Woodhouse Ridge shows the beginnings of Leeds’ urban expansion as the city’s Victorian industrialisation encroached on the surrounding countryside. This juxtaposition between the urban and the rural is a subject frequently revisited in Grimshaw’s work.

The scene shows figures, one of which is said to be Grimshaw’s wife, looking over Leeds, towards St Chad’s church. 

This work has been added to an already extensive collection of Grimshaw’s paintings owned by Leeds Museum and Galleries. It will soon be added to The Leeds Story exhibition at Leeds City Museum.

With help from the Friends, six more frames have been carved to match and used to display a range of military medals from the Museums’ collection.

The drawing room re-opened in mid July 2012 and is well worth a visit.  Part of the original faded paper has been left to highlight the conservation work that has taken place – it’s fascinating!

The current exhibition ‘Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton’ is on loan from the V&A in London and was well received there by the thousands of visitors who attended.

This exhibition, in the Queens Diamond Jubilee year, tells the fascinating story of a magnificent collaboration between crown and camera and catches Elizabeth II as Princess, Monarch and Mother.

The exhibition carries a small admission charge; however members of the friends have been invited to an exclusive event later this month which will include a glass of bubbly and some nibbles followed by a privative view of the exhibition free of charge. This is just one example of the benefits that membership can bring.

Along with our contribution, generous grants from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, The Art Fund, The Headley Trust, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society and the Goldsmith’s Company, as well as almost £14,000 in public donations, ensured that these amazing finds will now stay in their home museum.

A huge thank you to everybody who donated to the appeal, it really made a huge difference and without your help these nationally significant finds would not have been saved for the public.

You can still see the West Yorkshire Hoard on temporary display in The Leeds Story gallery in Leeds City Museum.

What happens now?

Now the objects are staying in Leeds, the museums service are working on developing a new permanent display for the objects within The Leeds Story gallery.  They will be involving partners such as the Institute for Medieval Studies at Leeds University to develop ongoing research which will feed into the interpretation of the finds.  Leeds Museums and Galleries also hope to develop a small publication on The West Yorkshire Hoard by the end of the year.

If you want to find out more, Curator of Archaeology, Katherine Baxter, will be giving a free half-hour lunch time talk on the hoard in The Leeds Story Gallery as part of the Festival of British Archaeology, on Tuesday 24^th July 12.30-1pm.

Organised by Leeds Museums in conjunction with Leeds Library Service, the first of two pilot sessions took place at Leeds Central Library and we welcomed four ladies who were both nervous and excited to get started.

For those of you out there who are anxious or feel that computers and the internet aren’t for you, ask them how it went and you might be surprised to find that you too, want to try your hand.  Jean, Joyce and Nadine all have computers at home but never switched them on as they felt they might break them.  By the end of the session they were dragging and dropping and clicking and pointing along with the best of them.  First time experiences included shopping for books on Amazon, booking cheap train tickets, researching trip destinations to London and Shakespeare’s stomping ground, Stratford-upon-Avon and finding a website to buy hard to find cast iron candlestick holders by a specific designer.

We will see what everyone remembers next week when we take a look at websites like this and Leodis, the photographic archive of Leeds.

Maybe this is something to ooffer to members again in the future, but in the meantime don’t forget that the Leeds Library Service offers free IT training that you can access from the Central Library or even your local branch.  Don’t be afraid to ask your librarian about what is on offer - everyone starts somewhere.  There is also a dedicated number to call for enquiries which is 0113 2476016 and the staff are all hugely helpful and approachable.

These moulds are highly sought after by American golf collectors, but the vendor wanted the best examples to come to the Leeds museum collections. They are for the best-selling models: the Bronty “Chipmaster” and Bronty “Rustler” (plus a putter). Other items include 9 golf clubs, 1 display stand, 6 putting hoops, 7 golf balls and 1 brass putter head.

The company traded for over 30 years and produced thousands of golf clubs but went into decline due to cheap far east imports and it failed to develop with the big name golf companies. It is however famous for its Rustler putter range, chipmaster and pitchmaster chippers.

A selection of these items will be displayed at Abbey House Museum from 21st January 2011 as part of the “Performance” exhibition.