Watercolours by Howard Carter, beautiful ruby and onyx jewellery and replica royal thrones feature in a major new exhibition in Newcastle which captures our continued fascination with the world of Ancient Egypt.
Visions of Ancient Egypt: Art, Design and the Cultural Imagination is running at Laing Art Gallery until April 29 and includes a huge mix of exhibits - 140 of them - from furniture to costumes, paintings, ceramics, photographs and film to reflect just how that world has been reflected over the years.
And it's an eye-opener. Esmé Whittaker, keeper of art Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, says: "I think people are fascinated by ancient Egypt and I think this is a very fresh take on it, looking at it through the lens of art and design." The exhibition demonstrates how enduring that appeal is and what is interesting, she suggests, are the different perspectives over a broad time span to show how it has captured the imagination.
Read more: From Ancient Egypt to Tyneside chippies: top exhibitions to see in 2023
Alongside the familiar representations of Ancient Egypt which many of us might be familiar with are exhibits to make you think, including work by modern day Egyptian artists which questions how their culture has been portrayed, appropriated even. The exhibition, which comes to Newcastle from The Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia, shows multiple visions of Egypt and how it has been represented from the time Egypt became part of the Roman Empire right up to the present day.
Referencing how Jean-François Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822 and Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb 1922, it demonstrates how the opening up of Egypt's secrets captured the imagination. Egyptian motifs began to appear in outfits and jewellery and visitors to the Laing can admire, for instance, jewellery with colourful gem designs including a 1894 lapis lazuli necklace from Egypt; a Lalique necklace of green glass, gold and enamel and a 1867 'Pharaoh’ brooch representing the goddess Isis.
And there are vintage dresses with Egyptian motifs - popular in Art Deco - plus 1930s travel posters with typical scenes of camels and pyramids. Howard's beautiful detailed watercolours of temple friezes and pharaohs are a highlight and they feature alongside photographs of the later discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb - where the exhibition notes that the Egyptians featured, the ones directly involved in the hard work, went unnamed.
Before a time of colour photography, art was used as a way of accurately documenting early tomb finds and Esmé says: "Howard Carter is such a household name but a lot of people won't necessarily know him as an artist."
The exhibition follows on from a first collaboration with The Sainsbury Centre, whose exhibition Art Deco by the Sea - a look at how the art style transformed the British seaside in the 1920s and 1930s - came here at a time which unfortunately coincided with the pandemic lockdown. This time around there is set to be no shortage of visitors to the show which the Laing has added to with a giant painting of its own, The Flight of Antony and Cleopatra from the Battle of Actium, by Gateshead-born artist Agnes Pringle.
There's also a watercolour on show from Shipley Art Gallery by Scottish painter David Roberts who sketched ancient sites of his travels to Egypt.
Otherwise, exhibits come from collections - including private ones - across the UK and internationally. Some perpetuate the western myth; others challenge it. There are paintings by Joshua Reynolds and Lawrence Alma-Tadema while among the contemporary artists questioning past visions of Egypt is David Hockney; New York-based Awol Erizku, and Turner Prize winner Chris Ofili who challenges the myth of Cleopatra as a seductress and instead depicts a black African queen.
Cleopatra, who was Egypt’s last and probably most famous pharaoh, begins the exhibition on the gallery's upstairs level, where it flows into a second room, and towards the end is a film by Sara Sallam which challenges western stereotypes in a portrayal of Egyptian ‘mummies’ as monsters in films. In between is everything from a wood and woven-reed stool dating back to 1425-1295 BC to a 'Black Power' depiction, in neon, of Nefertiti by Erizku from 2018.
The exhibition runs until April 29. An admission charge applies: for more information see here.
The last major exhibition to run at the Newcastle gallery was The Lindisfarne Gospels which clocked up more than 56,000 visits during its 11-week run. The illustrated manuscript - created at Holy Island in Northumberland 1,300 years ago and now housed at the British Library - was on show in the city for the first time since 2020 and the display attracted three times more visitors than other recent exhibitions, 23% of them first-timers.
Julie Milne, chief curator of art galleries at TWAM, said: “The response to the exhibition has been fantastic". Its sponsor was the new Ad Gefrin Visitor Experience and Distillery, due to open this spring at Wooller in Northumberland near the royal summer palace of the 7th Century Northumbrian kings and queens where it will bring alive that time which - like the Gospels - coincided with the period when north Northumberland was at the centre of European culture.
Read Next
