“DON’T LET’S ASK FOR THE MOON ….” : NOCTURNES AND ATKINSON GRIMSHAW
An
exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery 14th November 2025 to 19th
April 2026
Reviewed by Jim Burns
John Atkinson Grimshaw was born in Leeds in 1836 and died in Leeds in 1893.
Some people may not be familiar with his name, but they could know one or
two of his paintings, if only because they’ve been used on the covers of
more than one collection of Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories. His
“nocturnes”, with the moon invariably in evidence, and their gaslight-lit
wet streets, and lanes with trees casting shadows across walls that seem to
lead to dark corners, are evocative of a time when night held more mysteries
than are evident in our neon-lighted cities. There is also the uneasiness
that comes with crumbling old properties. Grimshaw’s “The Old Mill”, with
the tumbledown building seen through trees and tangled undergrowth has, for
me, all the hallmarks of the eerie, and demonstrates his “unique ability to
provoke strong emotional responses” in the viewer.
Some critics may have suggested that Grimshaw’s liking for the nocturnal was
possibly a means of disguising his shortcomings in other areas. Largely a
self-taught painter, he was sometimes accused of lacking a proper sense of
perspective and of not paying enough attention to figures in his paintings.
I wouldn’t agree. Figures at dusk and in the dark can often seem little more
than an outline when seen from a distance. The people strolling in
“Reflections on the Thames, Westminster” are a good example. With other
details – the lights from a shop window, the outlines of buildings or ships
moored along a quayside - Grimshaw was a master of “lighting and shadow”.
His devotion to realism is said to have derived from his love of
photography, and he was known to have used “a camera obscura or lenses to
project scenes onto canvas”.
Like any artist, Grimshaw could alter details to suit the composition of his
painting. The caption accompanying “Park Row, Leeds” notes that it would be
“astrologically impossible” for the moon to be in the position that Grimshaw
had placed it. It doesn’t matter, any more than it mattered to Turner when
he showed the hulk of “The Fighting Temeraire” being towed to her final
berth to be broken up, and had her still with masts and other fittings. Both
Grimshaw and Turner produced perfectly fine paintings that only pedants
would challenge.
Grimshaw painted in various locations – Leeds, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester,
London and Scarborough. There is a particularly good painting of Scarborough
Harbour on display. And it’s worth taking note of the canvas that, in a way,
is the excuse for the exhibition, Leeds Gallery’s recent acquisition,
“Reflections on the Aire – On Strike”, which is described as “likely to be
one of the first paintings depicting the consequences of industrial action”.
That may well be true. I’m not qualified enough to discount it.
Grimshaw was a friend of James McNeill Whistler, himself a noted painter of
nocturnal scenes. Whistler paid tribute to Grimshaw when he said, “I
considered myself the master of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy’s moonlit
scenes”. The exhibition at Leeds is small and the dozen or so Grimshaw
paintings at its centre are accompanied by mostly minor nocturnal
illustrations by Judith Tucker, Selma Makela, Elizabeth Magill, Roger
Palmer, and Joanna Whittle. It did occur to me that it might be time for a
bigger exhibition of Atkinson Grimshaw’s work. I recall the one in Harrogate
in 2011 and the interest it aroused at the time.
Visitors to Leeds Art Gallery might also be interested in the exhibition of
work by John Tunnard, an English artist partly influenced by both Surrealism
and Neo-Romanticism, though never a slave to either. It’s a contrast to
Grimshaw, I agree, but I found things in it to like. It additionally has
paintings and sculptures by Tunnard’s contemporaries, Edward Wadsworth,
Barbara Hepworth and Paul Nash. There’s also “An Axis of Abstraction: Art in
Cornwall and Yorkshire - Then
and Now”, with work by Terry Frost, among others. (See my review in
Northern Review of Books, April 2024).
Should anyone be wondering about the title of the Atkinson Grimshaw
exhibition, it’s taken from the 1942 film, Now Voyager, when Bette
Davis, in the final scene, says to Paul Henreid, “Oh, Jerry, Don’t let’s ask
for the moon. We have the stars”.