Rethinking the Image

Image source: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/park-row-leeds-38077 (Accessed: 7 December 2025). © Bridgeman Images

John Atkinson Grimshaw, Park Row, Leeds (1882), Leeds Art Gallery, 76.2 cm x 63.5 cm, oil on canvas.

The warm, amber glow of gaslit city streets, reflected in the wet cobbles. Delicate mist, gathering over docklands and rivers. The moon in the twilight sky, partially obscured by delicate cloud formations. These are some of the recurring visual themes of the Victorian painter, John Atkinson Grimshaw – the principal subject of a new exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery.

Figure 1: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/reflections-on-the-thames-westminster-london-37665 (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

Born in Leeds in 1836, Grimshaw was largely self-taught, with his depictions of light and shadow being informed by his interest in photography^[1]. One of the most esteemed artists of his era, he is particularly well-known for his nocturnal scenes^[1], in which urban and industrial areas are illuminated by moonlight, gas light, and new electric lamps – the latter can be seen in Reflections on the Thames, Westminster (1880; figure 1).

Figure 2: https://news.leeds.gov.uk/news/artists-captivating-moonlit-masterpiece-comes-home-to-leeds (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

Titled ‘Don’t Let’s Ask for the Moon…’: Nocturnes and Atkinson Grimshaw^[2], this exhibition brings together a significant number of Grimshaw’s works from Leeds Art Gallery’s collection, including its latest acquisition^[3], Reflections on the Aire – on strike (1879; figure 2). In the exhibition, these works are brought into dialogue with a number of contemporary artists who possess a similar interest in the nocturnal, with the aim of liberating Grimshaw’s paintings from their historical context^[4].

Figure 3: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/nightfall-down-the-thames-37875 (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

It’s an interesting idea. As a frequenter of art galleries in the North of England, I’m naturally very familiar with Grimshaw’s paintings, but I tend to view them – almost subconsciously – as artefacts of a bygone age. Seeing a large number of his paintings together, however, is new to me, and it soon becomes apparent – with the help of the exhibition’s accompanying text, I ought to add – that many of their themes are distinctly modern.

Figure 4: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/boar-lane-leeds-38473 (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

In Nightfall down the Thames (1880; figure 3), the masts of large ships appear intertwined against a shimmering backdrop, while in Boar Lane, Leeds (1881; figure 4), the word ‘TOBACCO’ hangs in the foreground in bold type. In Grimshaw’s moonlit paintings, the city is shown not just as a place for business, but also as a place for leisure (see also figure 1). Industrialisation, urbanisation, technological advancement, the growing middle class, the beginnings of consumer capitalism – it’s all here, rendered in perfect detail and endowed with an immaculate beauty.

The lights have been dimmed for this exhibition. Visitors may find themselves having to squint slightly to read the labels, or having to get up close to the paintings to see their finer details. The light in the gallery is similar to the light in the paintings – warm, focused, but certainly not bright. It’s an immersive experience.

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Grimshaw was forward-looking not only in terms of the specific societal changes that he depicted, but also in his broader artistic vision, integrating visual themes traditionally associated with landscape painting into a range of urban settings^[4]. Interestingly, it’s the contemporary artists in this exhibition, generally speaking, who maintain a more rigid focus on nature.

Figure 5: https://www.paintingsince2000.com/selma-mkel-road-home (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

Figure 6: https://selmamakela.ie/category/archive/ (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

Included in the exhibition are a selection of recent paintings by Selma Makela. Small and discreet, they display particular fragments of the nighttime landscape – a swirling, starry sky (figure 5); moonlight over a hill; the cratered surface of the moon itself, as if seen through a telescope (figure 6). They are simpler and less theatrical than Grimshaw’s paintings, but just as attractive.

Figure 7: https://elizabethmagill.com/paintings/2024 (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

Figure 8: https://www.newexhibitions.com/e/64874 (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

Elizabeth Magill’s paintings are on a similar scale, displaying a particular preoccupation with trees and their twilight reflections in water, notably in her Sometimes in a Landscape series (figure 7). In another of her paintings (figure 8), a distant full moon is flanked on either side by bare tree branches; the whole scene is mirrored in a body of water, the twilight sky merging seamlessly with the icy depths. Here, there is a stark, poignant beauty.

Figure 9: https://www.magnoliabox.com/products/on-the-tees-near-barnard-castle-c1868-lmg100029 (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

Figure 10: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/nightfall-in-scarborough-harbour-north-yorkshire-37456 (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

None of this is to say that Grimshaw himself was immune to sentimental depictions of nature. In On the Tees, near Barnard Castle (c. 1868; figure 9), he hangs a sugary twilight sky above a picturesque hillside view, while the glowing sunset of Nightfall in Scarborough Harbour (1864; figure 10) is beautifully reflected in the water.

Figure 11: https://www.judithtuckerartist.com/paintings (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

While Grimshaw tends to keep his urban and rural subjects separate, the spaces in Judith Tucker’s Night Fitties series (figure 11), from which a selection of paintings are on display here, are unusual hybrids of the natural environment and the built environment^[4]. Specifically, they depict humble, self-built holiday dwellings on the Humberston Fitties, just south of Cleethorpes on the Lincolnshire coast^[4][5].

The soft, inviting glow of artificial light against the harshness of the twilight sky. This visual theme is as central to these paintings as to those of Grimshaw, but here, it carries an entirely different significance. Combined with Tucker’s dialogical titles, and with the apparent precarity of the prefabricated structures she depicts, it signifies the unlikely continuation of traditions and rituals against the relentless winds of social, political, and environmental change^[5].

Tucker had been travelling home from a weekend in Lincolnshire in November 2023 when she tragically died in a car accident^[6]. In a discreet footnote on one of the labels accompanying her paintings, her inclusion in the exhibition is dedicated to her memory^[4]. I’m reading it two years after her death, a month before the winter solstice of 2025; Tucker, like her contemporaries Makela and Magill, and like Grimshaw a century and a half earlier, challenges us to find beauty in darkness.

[1] Leeds Museums & Galleries (2025) Exhibition Sheds New Light on Renowned Leeds Artist John Atkinson Grimshaw. Available at: https://museumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk/news-famed-leeds-artist-s-moon-lit-works-set-to-shine-at-gallery-1v3r (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

[2] The exhibition’s unusual title is taken from a piece of dialogue spoken by Bette Davis’s character, Charlotte Vale, at the end of the 1942 romantic drama film, Now, Voyager.

[3] Leeds Art Gallery (no date) ‘Don’t Let’s Ask for the Moon…’: Nocturnes and Atkinson Grimshaw. Available at: https://museumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk/don-t-let-s-ask-for-the-moon-nocturnes-and-atkinson-grimshaw-hfnz (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

[4] ‘Don’t Let’s Ask for the Moon…’: Nocturnes and Atkinson Grimshaw (2025-26). [Exhibition]. Leeds Art Gallery. 14 November-19 April.

[5] Judith Tucker (no date) Night Fitties 2018-2022. Available at: https://www.judithtuckerartist.com/paintings (Accessed: 7 December 2025).

[6] University of Leeds (2023) Judith Tucker (1960-2023). Available at: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/arts-humanities-cultures/news/article/2544/judith-tucker-1960-2023 (Accessed: 7 December 2025).