Punchinello

The 1853 Gallery is only one of several galleries in Salts Mill, Saltaire.  There are gallery spaces on both the third and fourth floors.  Unlike the 1853 Gallery, which has a permanent exhibition, the other spaces have visiting exhibitions, by David Hockney and by other artists and craftspeople too.  In order, I suppose, to protect artworks that would be damaged by too much light, the galleries are shaded with blinds. The third floor has this lively red and white fabric, called 'Punchinello' (if I remember rightly) and designed by David Hockney.

[For those readers who have come to my blog more recently, the artist David Hockney was born in Bradford and studied at Bradford College of Art.  After many years of living in California, he now lives for much of the time on the Yorkshire coast. He was a personal friend of the late Jonathan Silver, the man who bought and redeveloped Salts Mill in the 1980s when it fell derelict after the textile business closed down.  The 1853 Gallery - the largest single collection of Hockney's work anywhere in the world - was the first part of the Mill to be reopened. There's more info if you click the David Hockney label below. ]