The Stanley Halls Gallery was already looking great when I left an hour or so ago after hanging eight original paintings and two prints. Stanley Halls was originally designed and built by William Stanley who also founded the ‘Stanley Works’ of ‘Stanley knife’ fame. It is a grand public building in the true Victorian philanthropic style, built alongside the technical school it has a fine theatre, a well designed gallery with loads of diffuse natural light as well as meeting rooms. The whole space is being lovingly brought back into use by a very enthusiastic local community and it looks like going on to become an excellent addition to the local arts scene.
Tomorrows Open House tours should be really interesting and with the cafe running and art up in the gallery waiting for the tours to get started should be enjoyable too. Everything will be kicking off at 10am and the last tour will be at 4:45pm.
Here are some photos of the paintings going up.
