Glasgow - Kelvingrove and the Hunterian Art Gallery and Museums

I was recently in Glasgow for the weekend and visited both the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and the Hunterian Art Gallery. 

Kelvingrove is a big place and spent a good few hours wandering around looking at the gallery exhibitions and the museum displays. Such a lot to see within this lovely building, including a working organ which you can see in the top of the picture above - was very atmospheric when it was being played. 

Grayson Perry - well known for his ceramic vases watched a documentary a while ago on how he approaches creating a new ceramic. His process is mostly about the gathering of stories behind people and these vases are to me, like a storyboard using symbols to recreate personal lives. This is the first encounter I have had with seeing his work in real-life, the ceramics are a lot larger than I had thought. 

                  'Floating heads' Sophie Cave

I will admit I struggled to find any information on this installation at the time, I've had to do my research since I came home. 

"Like a release of balloons, the heads bring lightness and humour to a grand building, lifting visitors heads and acting as a draw to the upstairs galleries" 

(Events team leader Esther Dugdale - http://www.creativematch.com/news/floating-heads-of-kelvingrove-signify/92612/)

Cave has 50 sculpted heads suspended in the space, each with different expressions all plain white but lit with changing colours from underneath. 

Also displayed within Kelvingrove Art Gallery is Salvador Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross - Again I remembered reading about controversy over this painting and how it has been damaged twice by irritated members of the public. The reason for these attacks on the painting is due to the the feeling of Dali's reputation and artistic style was not suited to be painting religious subject matters. 

Also had a visit to the Hunterian Art Gallery - it's a lot smaller scale but has the additional add-on of the Mackintosh House. Unfortunately, photography was not permitted but there is photographs can view on this link - http://www.mackintosh-architecture.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/freetext/display/?rs=5&q=florentine%20terrace

The Mackintosh House within the Hunterian Art Gallery is the reassembled interiors from the original house that Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh designed and lived in themselves. The original house was demolished in the early 1960's but the gallery moved all the interiors 100 meters to be re-housed in their specifically designed 'house' to replicate the original! However, not each room was reconstructed, the: cloakroom, kitchen, bathroom and secondary bedrooms do not feature within the Hunterian's Mackintosh House. 

What I did view of the Dining Room, Studio-Drawing Room and Bedroom was unmistakably Mackintosh-esk.