Hatton Gallery Wins Gallery of the Year
Hatton Gallery has been named Gallery of the Year at the 2018 Northern Soul Awards.
Hosted at the iconic Manchester Cathedral on the evening of 15 November, the Northern Soul Awards celebrated and rewarded cultural and entrepreneurial excellence in the North of England including theatres, music venues, museums, small and large businesses, restaurants, galleries, writers, bars, and festivals.
Prizes were awarded in 18 categories including Large and Small Theatre of the Year, Venue of the Year, and Northern Writer of the Year.
Along with Gallery of the Year, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM), who manage Newcastle University’s Hatton Gallery, also won Exhibition of the Year with their A History of the North in 100 Objects (part of the Great Exhibition of the North). A special award for Northern Soul of the Year also went to the Great Exhibition of the North itself, which TWAM was part.
Iain Watson, Director of TWAM, and who collected the award for Hatton Gallery said:
“2018 has been a cultural game-changer for the North East – it’s been an exceptional year for the region and we’re very proud to have been part of that.
“To win one award is always gratifying but for TWAM to win two awards and also be part of the wider Great Exhibition of the North makes me very proud – we’ve got a fantastic team at TWAM, and these awards are a great recognition of their creativity and dedication.
“We’re also very grateful for the support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and National Lottery players for both the Story of the North in 100 Objects (as part of the Great Exhibition of the North heritage programme) and for the Hatton Gallery capital project, creating a world class university gallery.”
Hatton Gallery won the award just after recently celebrating the first anniversary since re-opening in October 2017 following a 20-month, £3.8million redevelopment funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), with a ground-breaking launch exhibition that (re)positioned Newcastle as the birthplace of Pop Art.
Professor Vee Pollock, Dean of Culture and Creative Arts at Newcastle University said:
"We are both thrilled and honoured that the Hatton has won the Northern Soul Gallery of the Year award. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of the colleagues at the University and Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums whose hard work resulted in the fabulous refurbishment of the Hatton, and to thank the Heritage Lottery Fund who made it possible.
“This is important recognition of what the Hatton has achieved and we look forward to working with our colleagues in Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums to further its reputation as a unique University gallery."
Since reopening Hatton Gallery has had over 50,000 visits and enjoyed a 125% increase in footfall in its first six months of opening compared to the same period before it closed for redevelopment, demonstrating the influence the redevelopment has had.
Julie Milne, Chief Curator of Hatton Gallery, said:
“We’re absolutely thrilled for Hatton Gallery to be named Gallery of the Year. It has topped a fantastic year for the Hatton which has seen thousands of people come to see our revitalised gallery, and all the wonderful exhibitions that we have had on show since we re-opened.”
Highlights of the exhibition programme since reopening have included the critically acclaimed Pioneers of Pop, in addition to Sean Scully:1970, Kate Liston’s Feel After the New See, Machines and Myths: Sculpture and Drawings by Michael Lyons, Making of an Englishman, Louisa Hodgson: A New Perspective and now Exploding Collage.
The Gallery also has an important place at the heart of the Fine Art department at Newcastle University and stages both the BA Fine Art degree show and the Master of Fine Art Show as a platform for emerging artists to show their work.
Currently exhibiting at the Hatton is a season of exhibitions called Exploding Collage (featuring exhibitions Exploding Collage, Gathering and The Loud and the Soft Speakers), which explores how twentieth-century avant-garde artists expanded collage into radically new and immersive formats, with a specific focus on female artists, who were amongst the most pioneering but whose work is often overlooked.
This will be followed Francis Bacon | Ellen Gallagher in January, an exciting exhibition exploring the visual synergies between the two internationally acclaimed artists.
