Event type: Exhibition

Iconic designs by Vivienne Westwood, Mary Quant and Laura Ashley are being showcased in a new display celebrating costume, jewellery and decorative objects made by female designers.

Creating Visions: Women Designers 1900-2000 opens at the Walker Art Gallery on 21 October 2023. The display, located in the Craft and Design Gallery, will showcase pieces dating from the early 20th century to the early 21st century. They draw from National Museums Liverpool’s extensive decorative arts collection which is one of the finest in the UK.

The display celebrates 100 years of women designers at the Gallery and features 14 items of dress. These include a mini dress by Mary Quant. Quant, who died in April 2023, is credited with bringing to popularity the era-defining above-the-knee skirts and dresses of Britain’s ‘swinging sixties’.

Also on display will be a pinafore dress by Jean Muir; a tunic dress with matching overcoat by Janice Wainwright; a tunic dress from Vivienne Westwood’s Nostalgia of Mud Collection; a skirt and a long-sleeved top from Vivienne Westwood’s Rolls Royce Collection; an evening cape by Thea Porter; and a glass wedding dress made by Diana Dias-Leão.

Fiona Slattery Clark, Curator of Decorative Art at National Museums Liverpool, said: “Our vast decorative art collection contains some truly exquisite pieces by female designers and it’s been a joy to assemble some of the most exciting and significant designs from the last hundred years for this display.

“As well as featuring designers of global influence and acclaim, we’ll be displaying pieces with an important connection to Liverpool, including evening dresses made by designers who sold their garments in high-end boutiques located on Bold Street in the early 20th century.”

The display will include two Parisian-inspired evening dresses inspired by British designer Lucile and made by T & S Bacon of Bold Street, Liverpool; an evening dress inspired by French designer Madeleine Vionnet; an evening dress by Callot Soeurs Ltd; an evening dress with the label of Elaine Paquin of Bold Street, Liverpool; a full-length summer dress by Gina Fratini; and a full-length summer dress by Laura Ashley.

Also on show will be a selection of jewellery, enamels and glass which will change throughout the duration of the display. Jewellery from the 1980s and ‘90s by female jewellers will be exhibited, including pieces by the internationally renowned Wendy Ramshaw and Jane Adam. From Perspex and acrylic to precious metals and ceramic, a varied mix of materials will be presented.

The enamel display will feature a selection of works by a local artist specialising in enamelled metalwork, Liverpool-born Lily Day (b. 1870). Day studied at Liverpool School of Architecture and Applied Art and became an enamelling/metalwork instructor there. Between 1898 and the early 1920s her work was frequently exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery.

Find out more about the display at liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker

From 10^th – 16^th November visit the iconic Royal Liver Building on the ground floor between 12pm – 5pm to see the work of renowned local artist Faith Bebbington, whose work was not only the most popular ever seen on The Liverpool Plinth in 2021 but was also one of the selection panel for Liverpool Art Fair, and was interviewed as part of a special event on site in August.

“I studied sculpture at Winchester College of Art, set up my Liverpool studio in 1993 and now work nationally creating public artworks and exhibiting my sculpture. I also devise art projects in partnership with local schools, communities and cultural organisations such as Culture Liverpool and Dadafest.

My artistic practice initially stemmed from having cerebral palsy, a disability that has made me curious about how people and animals move. I explore this through figurative sculptures playing with balance, the process of falling, and capturing sequences of movement whether human or animal. In 2014 my artistic perspective shifted radically after surviving ‘terminal’ cancer! I stopped working with fibreglass resin as my main medium and focused on more sustainable, environmentally friendly ways of working, particularly re-using plastics by breaking the component parts down to then reconstruct them.” Faith Bebbington

This will be the first time since showing with dot-art in 2017, that the public with be able to purchase a Faith Bebbington sculpture, something that has been reserved for public commissions only during that time. With sustainability at the heart of Faith’s practice, purchase of the sculptures supports the ethical value of artwork that prioritises working with recycled materials.

Faith has a diverse range of sculptures on show including works from her Joy collection which inspired the title of the exhibition. Faith’s work acknowledges our need to find JOY, as we navigate through tough times. Sixteen new small-scale recycled paper sculptures will be presented, all created with wastepaper as the key material. The patterned papers used to create the paper mâché surface were collected over time by neighbours, friends, and colleagues.

Faith has created many animal sculptures over her career and now debuts five new hybrid, domestic pet-like Creatures. These sculptures of stretching, growling and slinking creatures have fur coats made from waste plastic milk bottles.

As you visit the exhibition, you will discover the variety of scales Faith explores, from smaller works to her large-scale public pieces that you may recognise from their temporary homes around Liverpool. “Jimmy” the work horse sculpture shown on Liverpool Plinth in 2021 and “Super Rat” which lived on the Baltic Skatepark wall, offering a chance to see public domain works, up close and personal.

In addition to the exhibition, you will have the opportunity to meet the artist and learn more about her process during the exhibition week from the opening evening, a lunchtime workshop, to informal chats with the artist while in residence. Please do visit our socials for details of these events.

All artworks are for sale. (Excluding public artworks)

Opening times: 12-5pm

From the unintentionally funny to the completely bizarre, Steve Goldman’s collection of more than 500 record covers are something to behold. Collected over a seven-year period from charity shops and online marketplaces, Goldman’s selection criteria is stringent: Is this one of the worst record covers in the world?

Visitors to Birkenhead’s Williamson Art Gallery & Museum will be able to make up their own minds when they go on display in November. Worst Record Covers is a unique celebration of some of the most questionable design choice in music history.

Goldman explains that to get into his collection, a cover “has to make me laugh! There are plenty of covers which are bad for the wrong reasons – sexist, homophobic, racist, gory et c- you won’t find any of these. I want records where the designers have tried to do something that’s gone horribly wrong”.

Visitors will have the opportunity to have their say on which is the best – or worst – via a public vote to select a favourite. This is an exhibition which can be enjoyed by the whole family, and younger visitors can enjoy games and activities, including designing their own worst record covers.

Goldman is a stroke survivor and is staging the exhibition in aid of Different Strokes, a charity helping younger stroke survivors.

The exhibition’s opening will also mark the publication of Goldman’s book “The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve”, published by Easy On The Eye Books. The text is written by Simon Robinson at Easy On The Eye, who has produced many sleeve designs himself (happily none of which feature in Steve’s collection!) with a foreword written by comedian Stewart Lee.

The exhibition is open November 15^th 2023 – January 27^th 2024 at Williamson Art Gallery.

On Friday 15^th December they’ll be holding a very special Worst Records Christmas Party! In the spirit of the show, the team from Birkenhead’s own Skeleton Records will be spinning the best, worst and most unexpected records to get you in the festive spirit, with a bar by Homebrew Bottle Shop, Oxton. Free tickets are available to book through the Williamson’s website.