Whitworth Art Gallery

Fab art gallery which is definitely worth a visit. Building has been restored in an amazing manner. Great open spaces house some wonderful art. Really enjoyed our visit there in October, 2017.

Housed with over 55,000 objects, the Whitworth Art Gallery is a gallery/museum that beacons as a cultural symbol of Manchester. The Whitworth focuses on fine art (with a specialty in watercolour), sculpture, and many works on paper (prints, textiles, and wallpapers). Even if you aren't the artsy fartsy type, the Whitworth is absolutely a place to see.

After its £15million renovation in early 2015, the Whitworth has become an architectural, eco-friendly behemoth fit for the entire family. I've never experienced such a wide variety of visitor engagement activities for every age group - toddlers, adults, students, and researchers alike! There is always something going on, which adds to its vivacity and most importantly, its accessibility.

The Whitworth opens its doors to its entire collection. You can contact any of the members of the curatorial team (found on their website) and schedule a one-to-one appointment to view any particular items. I would absolutely recommend seeing their textiles and wallpapers as they are very 60s/70s retro-heavy!

One of the best things about the Whitworth is how its walls have extended to embrace the beauty of Whitworth Park. Now you can have a cup of tea and a delicious cake in an entirely-windowed room, overlooking acres of greenery. The renovation of the gallery's interior is also something to come see in itself! A very modernistic approach to a cultural institution, the Whitworth embraces a lot of natural light and dimensional rooms for a very unique viewing experience.

You must have a look for yourself!

We managed to time our visit here so well that it had just been announced that the Whitworth had won UK Gallery of the Year for 2015 which was just perfect.

It's a bit of a walk from the city centre (35 minutes from Piccadilly Gardens) so we had a drinks stop at Big Hands along the way - highly recommended.

The Gallery itself is absolutely beautiful, having recently been refurbed. It has a very tranquil feeling to it and a lot of green credentials which is fantastic to see. As we entered we could hear a choir singing which was so lovely and welcoming - we headed to see who they were and it was a group of school kids. I'm not sure if it's a regular thing or that was a special occasion but either way, it was really nice to hear them as we wandered around the gallery.

I won't pick out any specific highlights as I think overall the gallery is really lovely, and a must-see when you go to Manchester.

Really enjoyed my first visit. Gorgeous open spaces, beautiful wooden floor, excellent free exhibitions. Even the soap in the toilets was Aesop - read super posh.

Particularly enjoyed the Tibor Reich exhibit. And I spent £9 on cards in the shop - what, they were cute.

Didn't visit the cafe but it looked like a serene place to eat and drink while overlooking the sun setting over the park (if you're lucky).

Go, visit the Whitworth and support this lovely space.

I couldn't wait to visit the newly reopened Whitworth Art Gallery after its £15 million refurb! They have done such an amazing job to the place. Its one of the most stunning buildings i have visited!
Each room has a different exhibit and the beautiful huge windows which overlook Whitworth park. I especially loved the exploding shed view exhibit!
Every member of staff who worked there was friendly and said hello. Make sure to take a visit to this amazing place!

The Whitworth is worth the train ticket to Manchester all in its own right - what a wonderful place! The building has been beautifully restored, and it is just as satisfying looking out of the massive windows across the surrounding park area as it is to take in the various art collections.

We were lucky to catch the tail end of one of the choir performances accompanying the current Gerhard Richter exhibition. The singers are dotted around the room and the Arvo Pärt compositions extremely moving - I was not surprised to be told that they regularly have visitors in tears.

Another highlight was a collection of Chinese art which will form the basis of a new museum in Hong Kong.

We didn't get a chance to sample the cafe/restaurant, but the long queue probably speaks for itself.

I freely admit that upon my previous two visits to this gallery of contemporary art in 2011 and 2013, I found it rather lame: The first time, half the gallery was closed due to redecoration for some upcoming exhibition - and, well, the second time around, the full gallery was accessible - and it only proved that not much was lost compared to my first visit. Nowhere near enough on display, and what was on display was rather blandly displayed for that matter.

Now, in 2015, after a UKP 15 million refurbishment, I was expecting more, much more - and my expectations were met ... for the most part. The space itself feels more inviting, more open - especially the panorama windows which open towards the park in the rear of the building. And there's more to see than previously.

That being said, presentation-wise, there's still some farty in the arty. To put the finger on it, the decision not to have labels on many of the exhibits - opting for printed leaflets instead where the visitor has to first figure out where everything is, then pick the number of the artwork in question, is a bad idea. A very bad idea. A VERY, VERY bad idea. As a "customer", I want to focus on the pieces of art - not on the puzzle. These stupid leaflets are just a distraction, and not a very good one. Honestly, when I first arrived and saw that I had to take out the leaflets to know which artwork was which, I got so upset I almost left the gallery without further ado! It would have been okay if the leaflets provided additional info on the artists and work. BUT THEY DON'T!!! Just the name of the artist and the title of the work. What a pathetic waste of time!!!

Contemporary art offers enough obstacles to enjoy it, you don't need new ones artificially imposed. Art presentation doesn't have to be pretentious, you know!

When finally I settled into the pick-the-leaflet-out routine, I enjoyed it more. Especially the many wonderful portrait paintings on the ground floor. Dozens of great works there. I was less enamored with the "installation" on the first floor, but maybe that's just me. When I look at a work of art, I need to see the CRAFT, the EFFORT that went into creating it, too. The EXPERTISE. That's true of traditional and contemporary art - especially concerning the latter, as there is often less, MUCH less craft involved in that.

The gallery is free, non-flash photography is allowed everywhere. The staff aren't particularly friendly - after all, they have to keep up the good name of modern art pretense. There's a café, too, with a great view of the park.

Lucian Freud
Francis Bacon
L.S. Lowry
J.M.W. Turner
Henry Moore
Vincent Van Gogh
Pablo Picasso
Barbara Hepworth
Rachel Whitread
David Hockney
Richard Hamilton
Peter Blake

Originally opened in 1889, the Whitworth Art Gallery has emerged into one of the most important galleries in the North West with a collection of over 50,000 pieces of historic, modern and contemporary art. Spread over two floors and several rooms, they usually have a small selection of work from their collection exhibited alongside visiting exhibitions.

Fans of textile designers like William Morris and Thomas Wardle should check out some of the gallery's rugs, silks and wallpapers whilst fine art lovers should be bowled over by the watercolours, drawings and sculptures on display. Personally, I'm more drawn to the gallery's contemporary art and am thrilled that they're currently showing Lynn Hershman Leeson's The Complete Roberta Breitmore til Summer 2010.

If you're not familiar with Leeson, she's an American artist that spent four years in the 1970s 'performing' and documenting 'a persona' she called Roberta. The photos, videos and sound recordings she collected make fascinating viewing and should provoke healthy debates about gender, sexuality, identity, 'the self' and surveillance culture.

The Whitworth Art Gallery is a a place I don't visit as often as I should, but on this occasion, I was there for the Andy Warhol exhibition, which runs until 16 April 2017.

The collection is quite limited, however, it displays a good a array of Warhol's work; his influences, history, and resonance in specific periods in history.

In the main room, a large daunting profile of Warhol peers down the room, as visitors follow collections like Self-Portrait with Skull (1978) and Self Portrait Strangulation (1978), along with Dollar Sign (1981) and a few other significant pieces occupying two adjacent rooms. It really is worth a visit to see the cultural significance of Warhol's work alongside his obsession with mortality, death, and consumerism.

I visited this exhibition quickly on a lunch break, but will return to admire all the other collections the gallery has to offer.

This is why Yelp is so useful. I LOVE Whitworth Art Gallery, it's right across the road from where I went to college and I used to go here most days to escape...but I'd completely forgotten about it until I saw Alison's review!

I'm not a huge fan if art really, I dislike most modern art but I am fascinated by older works, that is what is amazing about The Whitworth, you can go straight to the part that you like and just sit there.

No pressure, no hustle and bustle, no one bugging you, it's just a perfect place to escape from everything.

There's no pretension here, it's in the university area so the main visitors are students, it's not in the city centre so it's not that busy either.

The best part is of course that it's free entry, you have no excuse to not check it out.