North East Museums

FORMERLY TYNE & WEAR ARCHIVES & MUSEUMS...    From today Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums is known as North East Museums and we have a new visual identity to match!   We’ve been planning this for a while to better reflect our mission and commitments and the timing is perfect as we enter a new exciting phase as an organisation.    From 1 April 2025, Northumberland County Council will join our partnership, and we will manage Woodhorn Museum, Hexham Old Gaol and Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum alongside the other nine venues we run on behalf of our partners. We’re looking forward to expanding our work with visitors and communities into Northumberland.    Everything we do is built on successful partnerships – so thank you for your ongoing support!

COMPLIMENTARY REFRESHMENTS WITH YOUR VENUE HIRE  We’re excited to offer an exclusive treat to make your next event at North East Museums even more special. Book a space in our museums in the month of January or February 2025 and receive a complimentary round of refreshments [drinks] for your guests.  Whether it’s a corporate event, team meeting or networking reception, this is our way of saying thank you for choosing to host your special moments with us at Discovery Museum, Great North Museum: Hancock or Laing Art Gallery. To book your event, contact North East Museums Sales & Events Team via:  ⭐ Online enquiry form – link in the comments!  ⭐ Email [email protected]  ⭐ Telephone on 0191 277 2303 (open weekdays 9am-5pm until 23 December 2024 and reopen from 6 January 2025)    Bookings must be confirmed by midday on 17 January 2025. To receive this offer, please quote ‘VHJAN’ to your event coordinator on booking. Terms & Conditions apply.    We look forward to welcoming you to our venues in 2025! 

FILL YOUR HEART, INSTEAD OF YOUR CART ❤     “North East Museums venues are more than just places to visit—they’re spaces that are accessible to all, where curiosity is sparked, creativity is nurtured, and our community’s stories can be kept alive for generations to come.” - Cogan, Supporter It’s the time of year for giving to the people and charities you love. You can support your favourite museums and galleries by giving just £5 a month (or a £60 one off donation) to help us keep art and heritage at the heart of the North East.    Our Supporters receive:  🎄 invitations to VIP exhibition preview events (for you and a guest of your choice)  🎄 priority booking for exhibitions and events  🎄 regular emails about what’s on at our venues   🎄 quarterly updates about the impact of your support.    Thank you! Link to donate in the comments. 

New Year, new job? A very exciting role has opened up at the Great North Museum: Hancock - developing, co-ordinating and delivering our exhibition programme. Its a solid team with some very exciting projects to look forward to. Come join us at North East Museums.

AGE CONCERN CHRISTMAS PARTY AT SOUTH SHIELDS MUSEUM 🎄 We had a great time last week at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery for the Age Concern Tyneside South History Group Christmas party.   We’ve built up such a good relationship with this group! As well as festive celebrations, we deliver enriching activities for over 55s all year round through our Platinum Programme. Over the last five years, we’ve delivered over 180 sessions with 3,000 older people. At North East Museums, we recognise the positive health impacts of cultural participation. Our targeted community programmes respond to the needs of the North East population and are rooted in the five Ways to Wellbeing:  ⭐ Being connected  ⭐ Being active  ⭐ Taking notice  ⭐ Giving to others  ⭐ Learning new things.

TURNER IN NEWCASTLE MAKES THE TOP 10 The Laing Art Gallery’s original exhibition ‘Turner: Art, Industry & Nostalgia’ is featured in The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones’ top 10 art exhibitions of 2024. The centrepiece was a loan of ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ from The National Gallery – but Julie Milne, Lizzie Jacklin and the Laing team built a major show around it, borrowing other works by JMW Turner from collections around the UK. The exhibition ran from May – September 2024 and was hugely popular with North East Museums visitors. Jonathan Jones says: 🗣 Tugging The Fighting Temeraire to Tyneside for this exhibition, as part of the National Treasures project that sent masterpieces out of London, was inspired... 🗣 JMW Turner’s crimson and bronze, tear-jerkingly smoky vision of a great ship being heaved off to die resonated with the post-industrial story of Newcastle... 🗣 Photographs of 1970s shipyards and backstreets by Chris Killip were juxtaposed with Turner’s nautical paintings and watercolours to heartbreaking effect. Keith Merrin Sheryl McGregor Newcastle City Council NewcastleGateshead Initiative Newcastle NE1

As 2024 draws to a close, we’ve been reflecting on a very busy year for North East Museums (formerly Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums) and looking forward to exciting developments in 2025.  Thank you for your support and may we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! If you don’t celebrate Christmas, we hope you have an enjoyable break. Image: The Spence family ice-skating on a frozen pond in the 1800s. Tyne & Wear Archives collection.

EDINBURGH CASTLE 🏰 The painting seen here, Edinburgh from Castle Street by William Crozier, is currently on show in the Romance to Realities: The Northern Landscape and Shifting Identities exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery. 🎨    Born in Edinburgh, Crozier studied at Edinburgh College of Art before moving to Paris in the 1920s. There he was exposed to the revolutionary new approach of Cubism with its emphasis on fragmentation and abstraction.    In this eerily empty work showing his home city, the buildings are represented as simple geometric blocks with intense contrast between the sunlit facades and heavily shaded sides.    📸: William Crozier, Edinburgh from Castle Street, c.1930, image courtesy of the Fleming Collection. 

MUHAMMAD ALI AT SOUTH SHIELDS 🥊 Did you know that boxing legend Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) came to South Shields in the summer of 1977? Ali was the World Heavyweight Champion at the time, so his Tyneside visit drew huge crowds.    Ali came to our region to promote boys’ boxing clubs. He came at the invitation of Johnny Walker, a painter and decorator from South Tyneside who had once boxed himself. Johnny idolised Ali and had travelled to America in search of his hero, persuading him to come to an area of the world that the boxing champ had never even heard of.    Ali stated that he would remember his visit to South Shields for the rest of his life. He was struck by the immense reception and support he received while visiting. He was quoted as saying “To think I have so many friends in South Shields. I am going to tell them in America!”.   ✍️ Text adapted from the blog post written by Assistant Keeper of History at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery, Adam Bell.  📷 Images from our collection and courtesy of Fred Muddit of Fietscher Fotos, courtesy of South Tyneside Libraries. 

MITTENS 🧤 It’s not long now!  This painting by Ralph Hedley shows a granddaughter with her grandfather getting ready for Christmas. Two little sprigs of holly and mistletoe in the window brighten up this North-East cottage. The little girl’s grandfather lovingly helps her put on her new mittens, with the wrapping paper on his knee. It looks like she has two gifts, a doll and an orange, lying on the table. She also has smart new clogs, and a knitted scarf! 🎨 'Mittens', Ralph Hedley, oil on canvas (1907) This painting is currently on display in the Laing Art Gallery’s Café.