Long description:

An Exhibition History of Victorian Leeds is a groundbreaking account of the city?s cultural history through its public exhibitions. Offering a vivid analysis of these striking displays in appropriated spaces, it explores Leeds? relationship with fine and decorative arts, industrial culture and the sciences over the course of the nineteenth century. This significant contribution to urban history establishes Leeds? importance to the development of British art and design, collecting practices and museum culture, firmly situated in their regional, national and international contexts. From temporary exhibitions in music halls and cloth halls, hospitals and military barracks emerged the networks and structures that informed the development of the city?s permanent cultural institutions. The book closes with the first comprehensive history of the establishment of Leeds Art Gallery, its inaugural exhibitions and founding donations, which would go on to form one of the strongest collections of fine art in the country.

'With clarity of argument, depth of research, and the persuasiveness with which the author argues for the importance of the public exhibitions that preceded the founding of Leeds? permanent art gallery in the 1880s, this book makes an important and original argument, filling a gap in our knowledge and understanding of the cultural history of a major industrial city.' Professor Kate Flint, University of Southern California