New-look museum is pulling in the crowds
THE newly refurbished Whitaker Museum has been celebrating high visitor numbers after its reopening in July.
The impressive £2.2 million re-development of the museum and art gallery, which included a significant grant from The National Heritage Lottery Fund, has attracted visitor numbers of around 250 a day.
Managing director Carl Bell said they have been really pleased with the visitor numbers and the “lovely comments and feedback” they have been getting.
“We’ve even had some visitors from California,” he said.
“I’m not sure they came just for our reopening but nonetheless it’s great to see that we can hold our own as a quality visitor attraction!
“We knew there was a real appetite for a good high quality cultural space with high calibre artists and exhibitions and that if we delivered then the people would come.
“And that’s proved to be the case.”
The new development has seen the museum double in size with the addition of a new café and community space, extended exhibition areas and the refurbishment of the original house.
Creative director Gaynor Seville, who is leading on the museum and galleries, will work with local and internally renowned artists and crafts people to present a varied and contemporary programme of exhibitions.
Gaynor said: “The first two exhibitions from artists Kara Lyons and David Hancock, have received excellent comments and we’re extremely pleased to announce another first with the unveiling of a new sculpture from renowned artist John Hyatt.”
John has had a long relationship with the Whitaker stretching back to 2002.
He staged an exhibition, examining the historical background of the now infamous ‘Betty Treacle’ portrait in the collection in 2012.
In the same year, he exhibited his ‘ Rossendale Fairies’ photographs which went internationally viral and profiled Rossendale and the Whitaker on a global stage.
John’s new work ‘ The Fledgling’ has been commissioned specifically for the Whitaker and will be a permanent public sculpture in bronze and stainless steel.
John said: “I wanted to show a relationship to the collections and the museum’s wooded situation in Whitaker Park. ‘The Fledgling’ is elegant and totemic. It has a sense of wonder to it.
“A beautiful perfection takes to the air above the tangled barbed wire of a difficult nest. It represents the trans-generational and the transformative; freedom rising from adversity; and a future of hope.
“Ultimately, it represents Rossendale and The Whitaker itself in its cyclic rebirths.”
The unveiling of the sculpture was due to take place on Thursday, August 19 at 6pm and on the same evening there was to be a talk from exhibition artist David Hancock.
As well as exhibiting renowned local and international artists, The Whitaker will also be launching an annual Lancashire New Graduate Award.