art

Art

Liverpool has numerous great city art galleries and free art exhibitions. First stop should be the Liverpool Walker Art Gallery, the national gallery of the North, which houses works by Hockney, Degas, Turner and Rembrandt. VisitLiverpool recommends that you ask at reception for a helpful guide to the highlights, all of which are on the first floor of the gallery.

Tate Liverpool, at Albert Dock, is also a must-visit city art gallery, housed in a stunning Grade 1 listed converted warehouse that stages lots of fantastic free as well as paid-for art exhibitions featuring work by everyone from Tracey Emin to Picasso.

Check out Liverpool Bluecoat too, another distinctive Grade I listed, 290-year-old arts centre and art gallery which offers a lively programme of visual art, music, dance, live art and literature. Across the Mersey at Port Sunlight on the Wirral Peninsula is the Lady Lever Art Gallery, a beautiful, highly personal art collection of fine and decorative arts and a gallery really worth crossing the river for.

VisitLiverpool suggests that any trip to Liverpool should also take in the city’s world class public art, as well as the city art galleries, which stretches across the region.

Take a trip up to Crosby Beach to see the stunning public art exhibition Another Place, otherwise known as the Gormleys -- the 100 cast-iron life-size sculptures of Angel of the North artist Antony Gormley, standing and staring out to sea.

Then there is the free art installation Arbores Laetae (Joyful Trees) by artists Diller Scofidio + Renfro, three spinning trees installed next to a major city road junction, and even street artist Banksy’s biggest bit of free street art in the UK, on the edge of Liverpool’s China Town on Berry Street.