Special Collections Exhibitions

This year sees the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific institution. An exhibition at the entrance to the Brotherton Library marks this occasion, displaying books and manuscripts from Special Collections, including works by Robert Hooke and Sir Isaac Newton.

There is also an exhibition in the Special Collections foyer which uses books, broadsheets and cartoons to illustrate the development of elections, electioneering and voting in Britain over the past 300 years.

Richard High (Special Collections)

ULITA exhibition- final two weeks

'Bali and the islands of the Southeast'
an exhibition of Indonesian textiles
from Bali and Nusa Tenggara

From 7th October 2008 to 27 February 2009
Tuesdays – Fridays 09:30-16:30

The great string of islands between Java and Timor is known in Indonesia as Nusa Tenggara or the ‘Islands of the Southeast’ The region of Nusa Tenggara is a microcosm of the great diversity of Indonesia.

This exhibition aims to reveal some of the diversity and richness of the textiles of this region, based around a number of themes, including functions, ritual, design, production techniques, culture, continuity, decline and innovation.

The exhibition is based on the collection of Hywel Coleman OBE, Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education, University of Leeds. He is a consultant to the Ministry of National Education, Indonesia, and has been collecting Indonesian textiles since 1973.

'Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg & his circle' exhibition at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery

After almost 50 years, Isaac Rosenberg is set to return to the University of Leeds, at the recently refurbished and renamed Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery. A retrospective of Rosenberg's work was first held at the University in 1959, organised by Jon Silken, a Gregory Fellow in Poetry, and Maurice de Sausmarez, former Head of Fine Art.

This exhibition is the first to focus on the poet-painter Isaac Rosenberg for more than 15 years. It is also the first to fully explore Rosenberg's art in the context of his Whitechapel peers - among them the painters David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Jacob Kramer and Clare Winsten (Clara Birnberg) - and writers John Rodker, Joseph Leftwich and Stephen Winsten - as well as associates such as Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Horace Brodzky. Featuring more than 50 paintings, drawings and works on paper, as well as selected manuscripts, photographs and ephemera, the exhibition follows the recent publication of Dr. Jean Moorcroft Wilson's new biography of Rosenberg (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1 April 2008) and coincides with the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

The exhibition was conceived and curated by Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art as part of their ongoing series 'The Whitechapel Boys'

Exhibition dates: 16 June - 25 July 2008

Opening reception: 17 June, 6-8pm

Study Day: 6 July

Friends of University Art and Music talk - 'From Worrier to Warrior: Isaac Rosenberg and The Great War'by Shaun Levin: 23 July, 6pm

Image credit:

Isaac Rosenberg, 'Self-Portrait in a Steel Helmet,' 1916
Black chalk and gouache on brown wrapping paper, 24 x 19.5
Private Lender