Curator Mark Evans | Phone +44 116 225 4900 | |
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Established 1849; 168 years ago (1849) Location Leicester, United Kingdom Website New Walk Museum and Art Gallery Address 53 New Walk, Leicester LE1 7EA, UK Hours Closed now Saturday10AM–5PMSunday11AM–5PMMonday10AM–5PMTuesday10AM–5PMWednesday10AM–5PMThursday10AM–5PMFriday10AM–5PMSuggest an edit Similar Abbey Pumping Station, King Richard III Visitor Ce, National Space Centre, Tropical Birdland - Leicestershire, Newarke Houses Museum | ||
Sir david attenborough at the dinosaur gallery new walk museum art gallery leicester
The New Walk Museum and Art Gallery is a museum on New Walk in Leicester, England, not far from the city centre. It opened in 1849 as one of the first public museums in the United Kingdom. New Walk contains displays of both science and art, international and local. The original building was designed by Joseph Hansom, designer of the hansom cab. It has been expanded several times, most recently in 2011.
Contents
- Sir david attenborough at the dinosaur gallery new walk museum art gallery leicester
- Artist rooms georg baselitz new walk museum art gallery leicester
- Major exhibits
- Dinosaurs and fossils
- Other
- Exhibitions
- References
Artist rooms georg baselitz new walk museum art gallery leicester
Major exhibits
Permanent exhibits include dinosaurs, an Egyptian area, minerals of Leicestershire, the first Charnia fossil identified nearby, and a wildspace area featuring stuffed animals from around the world.
Dinosaurs and fossils
New Walk Museum has a significant collection of extinct lifeforms. Two dinosaur skeletons are permanently on display — a cetiosaur found in Rutland, and a plesiosaur from Barrow upon Soar.
The Rutland Dinosaur, affectionately nicknamed George, is a specimen of Cetiosaurus oxoniensis. The fifteen-meter dinosaur, which is among the most complete sauropod skeletons in the world, was discovered in June 1968, in the Williamson Cliffe quarry near Little Casterton and Great Casterton. The skeletal remains have been in the museum since 1975; the majority of the bones in the display are replicas of the originals, which are too fragile to be used. The Rutland Dinosaur featured on an episode of Blue Peter, and was opened by Blue Peter's Janet Ellis in 1985.
The Barrow Kipper, named after the flattened fish, is a skeleton of an unidentified plesiosaur discovered in Barrow upon Soar in 1851. Originally classified as Plesiosaurus macrocephalus, it was later reclassified as Rhomaleosaurus megacephalus. However, according to Adam Smith and Gareth Dyke (2008), the fossil is actually of another, unnamed genus.
In September 2011, the museum expanded its Dinosaur Gallery, reorganizing fossils, adding a new room, and modifying the gallery itself. The new Dinosaur Gallery, which predominantly features extinct marine reptiles, was opened by David Attenborough. The "star attractions" of the new gallery include the aforementioned Rutland cetiosaur, Charnia and plesiosaur fossils, as well as a Leedsichthys fossil and a piece of the Barwell Meteorite.
The museum holds a specimen of international importance, the Charnia fossil. It is the first fossil that was ever described that came from undoubted Precambrian rocks, which until this point had been thought to be too early for large forms of life. The object in the museum – "Leicester's fossil celebrity" – is a holotype, that is, the actual physical example from which the species was first identified and formally described. Charnia masoni was named after Roger Mason, who discovered it at Charnwood Forest in 1957, when he was a schoolboy, and who went on to a career as an academic geologist. He acknowledges, and the museum's Charnia display explains, that the fossil had been discovered a year earlier by a schoolgirl, Tina Negus, "but no one took her seriously".
Other
The museum holds four Egyptian mummies, named Pa-nesit-tawy, Pe-iuy, Bes-en-Mut and Ta-Bes. It also has a stuffed polar bear, Peppy, the mascot of Fox's Glacier Mints.
In 2007, more than 100 pieces of art went on display at the museum, donated by Richard Attenborough, namely a collection of Picasso ceramics
The museum holds the UK's largest collection of German Expressionist art. These paintings, including works by George Baselitz, Kandinsky and Klee, were smuggled out of Germany before World War II. Hitler was not a fan of these painters – see the 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition.
Exhibitions
On the first floor of the museum is an exhibition area that changes periodically. Recent exhibits have included a display focusing on the search for the remains of Richard III, a Wallace and Gromit display, and Spirits of War to Hands of Peace, an exhibit of paintings and sculpture on the horrors of war and the power of peace.