Hull: UK City of Culture 2017
Various locations around Hull (www.hull2017.co.uk). Events scheduled throughout 2017
For the past 80 years, Hull has experienced no end of neglect, said James Walton in The Spectator. During the Blitz, it was “second only to London” as Britain’s most bombed city; and its vital fishing industry was all but “wiped out” during the cod wars of the 1970s. To add insult to injury, the bestselling 2003 book Crap Towns identified it as the UK’S worst place to live. Small wonder, then, that its status as the UK City of Culture for 2017 was “greeted with amusement” by some people – and “not all of them living elsewhere”. Yet since the festivities began last month, Hull has been “buzzing with a hugely infectious, if slightly bashful” sense of civic pride. The opening week of the city’s ambitious culture programme attracted “more visitors than the British Museum, The National Gallery and the Natural History Museum combined” in the same period; and a range of art, music and theatre events have captured the imagination of its residents. Whisper it, but it “may well be that something remarkable is going on in Hull”.
Since reopening to the public in January after a £5.2m refurbishment, the city’s Ferens Art Gallery has attracted nearly 50,000 visitors, said Nancy Durrant in The Times – a “testament to the affection in which it is held locally, but also to the consistent quality of the works on display”. The Ferens is a “handsome” building with an “underappreciated” collection that’s “particularly strong” in Dutch Old Masters. Highlights include an “exquisite” Frans Hals portrait of a young woman; a “shimmering” gold altarpiece by Pietro Lorenzetti depicting Christ between St Paul and St Peter; and a “delightful” image of a “downcast” young woman by Joseph Wright of Derby. The modern collections also contain some “gems”, including a “hefty” selection of Francis Bacon paintings. Meanwhile, the Humber Street Gallery, a new contemporary art space, offers a “more enjoyably confronting” programme, featuring shows from Sarah Lucas and performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti.
But the “pinnacle” of Hull’s art programme is to be found at the Brynmor Jones Library, said Laura Cumming in The Observer. Here, we see a “stupendous” selection of drawings, curated in partnership with the British Museum, and featuring artists from Tintoretto to Bridget Riley. Among the wonders on show are Seurat’s sketch for La Grande Jatte, a “hectic” Rubens study of dancers, and a drawing in which Da Vinci imagines Christ as a child, cuddling a cat. This “astounding” exhibition is “surely the greatest gathering of artistic genius that will ever be seen in Hull”.