Music Hall: Sickert and the Three Graces
16 March 2013 – 5 January 2014
W.R. Sickert, The New Bedford (1915/16), The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate Borough Council
Theatre and Performance, Room 104
Free admission
At the turn of the 20th century, entertainment by and for the people was at its peak in Britain. Audiences jostled, boozed and sang along in over 500 music halls. Music halls were a result of Britain’s expanding commercial power, and for newly affluent workers they provided an escape from working life. For women performers, they offered the promise of an independent career. Popular song and comedy reflected the complexities of a changing industrialised society – a world that saw greater class mobility and the emancipation of women.
Walter Sickert’s painting The Gallery of the Old Bedford is an evocative depiction of a music hall. Sickert immersed himself in the world of the halls in his desire to capture modern life. For Sickert the music halls were a serious subject for art – a spectacle of light, colour, movement and sound, with female performers who were a never-ending source of artistic inspiration.
This display brings together Sickert’s paintings with objects and ephemera from the V&A’s collections to explore the culture of the music halls. At the heart of the story are the women performers.
Read more about Music Halls
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Complementing our permanent collections, there are many free temporary displays around the V&A. They range in size from a single case to a room.
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MoreShop online
Grace, Beauty and Banjos: Peculiar Lives and Strange Times of Music Hall and Variety Artistes (Paperback)
This valuable and wonderfully amusing record of popular entertainment, written by the musical hall expert and performer Michael Kilgarriff, includes w…
Buy nowEvent - Haberdashers' Hall
Mon 08 July 2013 14:00
Designed by Michael Hopkins and Partners, the Haberdashers’ 4th Livery Hall was officially opened in October 2002 by the Queen.
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