First Day in #Liverpool Visit to #BeatlesStory and #TateLiverpool

During our trip to Vancouver last year, we walked  along the seafront and after a while sat down for a rest. We shared a bench with a local man and after a while, he enquired about our accent. As we talked he said that he had visited England and his highlight was a visit to the Beatle experience in Liverpool. When we told him we only lived thirty minutes away, he was surprised that we had never been to the exhibition. At this point we were a little embarrassed and vowed to go some time in the future. 

Having booked it several weeks ago, we arrived in Liverpool to some excellent weather, although there was a cold wind from the river. The experience was impressive and we spent a couple of hours reliving memories of that time in music's history, before coming out into the dock area.

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After meeting our daughter and enjoying a drink in a café, we entered the Tate Liverpool. We started at the top floor, where there was an exhibition that was designed to help you to relax. There was a section for making herbal teas and a row of hammocks on display. Although they were meant for numerous people to lie down in them, unfortunately, at the time of our visit, the display was not open for use and as we didn't like the teas on offer, we soon left this floor and continued to explore the rest of the gallery.

We went down to the next floor and into the Roy Lichtenstein exhibition, expecting to see the pop art paintings he is famous for.

It was a great surprise to see a range of his landscape pictures. Apparently, these sea and landscape scenes were a recurring subject matter from 1964 onwards. He had a very experimental approach using synthetic materials in his quest to create illusionistic optical effects. In these works he used Rowlux and other plastics to convey the effects, such as water reflecting sunlight. You can still see the influence of his pop art paintings but these were a completely different genre. 

It just shows that you think you know an artist and then an exhibition, such as this, throws up surprises.

On the next floor down, we visited the modern art gallery. After the busy gallery above, the lack of people in here, I believe, sums up some of these exhibits, as we have discussed in previous blogs.

http://www.philipwestcott.co.uk/blog/its-the-way-you-write-or-talk-about-your-art

http://www.suewestcott.com/blog/mickey-take-of-the-tate

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In the next gallery was the Constellations exhibition. This was to encourage the exploration of connections between major modern and contemporary artists. These were arranged in constellations over two floors and offered an imaginative way of viewing and understanding the artworks through how they relate to each other rather than chronological sequence. 

Although, I didn't always see the link it was interesting to see this range of paintings side by side. 

After a busy day, it was back to the hotel  for a meal and as it had been such an artistic day, it was a chance for me to do a couple of sketches in the bar; as we relaxed ready for the next day.