For organisers with cultured delegates the world-class Manchester Art Gallery in Mosley Street offers more than 25,000 works of art, including around 2,000 oil paintings, and included in these are famed examples of Pre-Raphaelite works by Millais, Maddox Brown and Holman Hunt as well as paintings by Constable, Turner, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Waterhouse, Hughes, Etty, Lowry, Bacon, Freud, Hockney, Nash and Moore.
The fame of these aside however it is frequently the case at galleries that works by less-known artists can be more memorable for some, and for this observer’s money there are at least three that fell into this category on a recent visit. The Chariot Race (1882) by Alexander von Wagner depicts, on a huge canvas, this cruel and suicidal sport of Roman times, and places the viewer almost under the flailing hooves of the lashed and frantic horses and dangerously close to a chariot that has started to disintegrate. Continue reading →