Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, or mima, is a contemporary

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

art gallery

Art gallery

An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...

based in the centre of Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough is a large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England, that sits within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The gallery was formally launched on Sunday 27 January 2007. It is one of three institutions run by the Middlesbrough Museums & Galleries Service, along with the Dorman Museum

Dorman Museum

Dorman Museum is a general museum located in Linthorpe within the borough of Middlesbrough and the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. From its establishment in 1904 initial thematical leanings were towards the natural sciences, although galleries of the local Linthorpe Pottery, and of...

and Captain Cook Birthplace Museum

Captain Cook Birthplace Museum

Captain Cook Birthplace Museum is a free-entry public museum located in Stewart Park in Marton, Middlesbrough within the borough of Middlesbrough and the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England....

History and Estates

The gallery's opening marks the completion of an accumulative journey for the art collection of post-industrial Middlesbrough. The early artistic heritage of a town of Middlesbrough's youth rested largely on the success of the Linthorpe Art Pottery (1879-1889), co-launched by Christopher Dresser

Christopher Dresser

Christopher Dresser was an English designer and design theorist, now widely known as one of the first and most important, independent, designers and was a pivotal figure in the Aesthetic Movement, and a major contributor to the allied Anglo-Japanese branch of the Movement; both originated in...

out of the Sun Brickworks that built the suburb of that name. A School of Art had opened alongside the Mechanics' Institute in the Old Town's Durham Street in 1870, and by the 1950s that, too, had relocated to Linthorpe. The region's cultural profile was further amply boosted by the Cleveland International Drawing Biennale, up until that competition's extinction in the 1990s.

A spot for the town's first ground-up art gallery was granted by father of the Mayor, Sir Arthur Dorman as early as 1904. This was on Linthorpe Road opposite, and conceived in the same spate of events as, what was to become the Dorman Museum outside Albert Park. Funding shortfalls amid the onset of War, however, ensured that only a rest garden was eventually sited there. In the meantime, from 1927, the Carnegie Library

Carnegie library

A Carnegie library is a library built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929, including some belonging to public and university library systems...

and Grange Road Methodist Church housed the collection of paintings. Any permanent provision for the pieces did not materialise, however, until 1957, with the purchase by the Council of a former doctor's surgery on Linthorpe Road. It was not until 2003 that this building was vacated.

The former Cleveland Crafts Centre, based on Gilkes Street, catered for a collection of twentieth century British studio ceramics, and artist made jewellery dating from the 1970s onwards. The Cleveland Crafts Centre was closed as an exhibition venue in January 2003, and thereafter operated as the mima offices whilst the new gallery was being constructed. Its sister institution that lasted until 1999, the Cleveland Gallery, resided nearby in the erstwhile school buildings on Victoria Road. They are today home to the University of Teesside

University of Teesside

Teesside University is a university in Middlesbrough, England. It has a student body of 29,285 students as of the 2009/10 academic year. It recorded rises in applications of 25.1 per cent and 23.5 per cent for degree courses beginning in 2010, the highest such percentage increases of the five...

's graduate incubation studios in aid of new business start-ups.

Following the January 2003 closure of the two surviving galleries, construction of the present accommodation comprising the gallery spaces, education suite, auditorium, cafe-bar, shop, roof terrace,collection stores and conservation studio commenced in 2004. The centre was designed by Erick van Egeraat Associated Architect. Whilst construction was underway, mima programmed a series of offsite exhibitions and events including such artists as John Harrison and Paul Wood, Susan Pietzsch, Yuka Oyama, Graham Dolphin, Chicks on Speed

Chicks on Speed

Chicks on Speed is a multi-national musical ensemble, formed in Munich in 1997, when members Melissa Logan, Kiki Moorse and Alex Murray-Leslie met at the Academy of Fine Arts....

, Martin Creed

Martin Creed

Martin Creed is an artist and musician. He won the Turner Prize in 2001 for Work No. 227: the lights going on and off, which was an empty room in which the lights went on and off.-Life and work :...

, Oliver Zwink and Mah Rana.

mima's founding director was Godfrey Worsdale, who left in 2008 to become director of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art

Baltic

-Northern Europe:* The Baltic Sea* Baltic states : Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia* The Baltic region, an ambiguous term referring to the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea...

. He was succeeded by Kate Brindley, previously director of Museums and Galleries at Bristol City Council

On 21 and 22 November 2009, the cast of the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

motoring programme Top Gear - Jeremy Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson

Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson is an English broadcaster, journalist and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May...

, Richard Hammond

Richard Hammond

Richard Mark Hammond is an English broadcaster, writer, and journalist most noted for co-hosting car programme Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson and James May, as well as presenting Brainiac: Science Abuse on Sky 1.-Early life:...

and James May

James May

James Daniel May is an English television presenter, journalist and writer. He is best known for his role as co-presenter of the award-winning motoring programme Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond....

- held an exhibition of automotive art at mima, which featured in the 5th episode of the 14th series of the show.

Collections

mima's collections contains works by Frank Auerbach

Frank Auerbach

Frank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...

, Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson

Benjamin Lauder "Ben" Nicholson, OM was a British painter of abstract compositions , landscape and still-life.-Background and Training:...

, Stanley Spencer

Stanley Spencer

Sir Stanley Spencer was an English painter. Much of his work depicts Biblical scenes, from miracles to Crucifixion, happening not in the Holy Land but in the small Thames-side village where he was born and spent most of his life...

, Elizabeth Blackadder

Elizabeth Blackadder

Dame Elizabeth Violet Blackadder, DBE, RA, RSA is a Scottish painter and printmaker. She is the first woman to be elected to both the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy....

, Ken Currie

Ken Currie

Ken Currie is a Scottish painter, one of the most influential living artists in Scotland. His paintings are displayed in public and museum collections worldwide....

, Gwen John

Gwen John

Gwendolen Mary John was a Welsh artist who worked in France for most of her career. She is noted for her still lifes and for her portraits, especially of anonymous female sitters...

, Dame Elisabeth Frink

Elisabeth Frink

Dame Elisabeth Jean Frink, DBE, CH, RA was an English sculptor and printmaker...

, Eduardo Paolozzi

Eduardo Paolozzi

Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi, KBE, RA , was a Scottish sculptor and artist. He was a major figure in the international art sphere, while, working on his own interpretation and vision of the world. Paolozzi investigated how we can fit into the modern world to resemble our fragmented civilization...

, Peter Howson

Peter Howson

Peter Howson OBE is a Scottish painter. He was an official war artist in the 1993 Bosnian Civil War.Peter Howson was born in London and moved with his family to Prestwick, Ayrshire, when Howson was aged four...

, David Bomberg

David Bomberg

David Garshen Bomberg was an English painter, and one of the Whitechapel Boys.Bomberg was one of the most audacious of the exceptional generation of artists who studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks, and which included Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, C.R.W. Nevinson and Dora Carrington...

, L.S. Lowry, Anne Redpath

Anne Redpath

Anne Redpath OBE was a Scottish artist whose vivid domestic still lifes are among her best-known works.Redpath's father was a tweed designer in the Scottish Borders. She saw a connection between his use of colour and her own...

, Paula Rego

Paula Rego

Paula Rego is a painter born in Portugal although she is a naturalised British citizen.-Biography:Rego was born in the Portuguese capital Lisbon, the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company. Although this gave her a comfortable middle class home, the family was...

, Sir Jacob Epstein

Jacob Epstein

Sir Jacob Epstein KBE was an American-born British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British citizen in 1911. He often produced controversial works which challenged taboos on what was appropriate subject matter...

, David Hockney

David Hockney

David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....

, Jeremy Deller

Jeremy Deller

Jeremy Deller is an English conceptual, video and installation artist. He is a Turner Prize winner.Deller is best-known for his Battle of Orgreave , a reenactment of the actual Battle of Orgreave which occurred during the UK miners' strike in 1984.-Life and work:Jeremy Deller was born in London,...

and Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin

Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

,
mima collection comprises outstanding fine and applied art from 1900 to the present day, with many pieces acquired by mima’s forerunners, Middlesbrough Art Gallery and the Cleveland Craft Centre.

Rather than being on permanent display, works from the collection are drawn upon throughout the exhibition programme. This gives mima's curators the opportunity to demonstrate the artistic quality of works acquired as well as constantly re-inventing the way in which works are presented.

mima's collection strengths are shown through the beautiful jewellery, ceramics and drawings they have to offer. Jewellery Workshops are available to give the public the chance to work with mima artist Jackie Steven and experiment with a range of materials and techniques to create beautiful and bespoke jewellery inspired by mima's stunning collection.

External links

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