Previous Exhibitions
Over the years since we opened in 2009, we have had almost 70 exhibitions. Some of these are available online. We hope you will enjoy browsing these pages. If you live far from Settle, perhaps it will whet your appetite to pay us a visit. And in the summer of 2019 we staged a special tenth anniversary exhibition at the Folly Museum in Settle. It ran from July 6 to September 6 and told the story of how we established the gallery. It listed all the exhibitions; included many of the posters we used to promote them and included tributes from many of our previous exhibitors, including Brian May who has shown some of his fascinating collection of Victorian photographs on two separate occasions. The boards from the exhibition are in the NOW WE ARE TEN section of this page.
18 January – 13 March 2020
Austwick-based photographer Mike Stobart visited our local allotments and gardens in autumn 2019 to talk to the gardeners and photograph them and their produce.
Five years ago Mike returned to Yorkshire from the south coast where he had been running his ‘Brighten deli’. The shop was all about finding and selling local produce to the folks in the Kemptown district of Brighton who had hitherto had to put up with a supermarket, which was in a scruffy unloved state.
The deli was, itself, gobbled up by the financial crisis but Mike’s passion for food and provenance remains. Undeterred by the seasonal dearth of fresh produce coming out of the ground he visited a few of our many local growers and producers to photograph them and their produce.
This colourful album showing just a few images helped to brighten up the dark winter days in North Yorkshire.
Mike Stobart
11 – 18 January 2020
The Gallery wss delighted to provide a venue for the 1st Castleberg Scout Group to present their plans to improve the access and facilities for their base at Settle Drill Hall. The plans were on show for a week from 11 January 2020. A member of the project team was at the gallery on several days during the exhibition to explain in detail how the scouts aim to modernise the 155 year old building that sits at the foot of Castleberg Crag by the gate to the wooded area above the town.
The project includes a new entrance with a lift for the disabled to make scouting inclusive to all and the relocation of the gate to Castleberg Crag. Improving access to the building will enable local groups to make use of the building during the day too. The exhibition included information about the sort of activities that might be organised in the hall provided by Settle Community Hub.
Giving young people Skills for Life is a core value of the scouting movement. To complement this work the scouts need to regenerate the drill hall so it can continue to support the scouts and their community through to the building’s 175th anniversary in 2040.
The date 2040 refers to an award-winning documentary about regeneration by Damon Gameau. The message of the film is that we already have all we need, knowledge and technology to build a thriving and sustainable world for our children in 2040 (
https://whatsyour2040.com). The revamped drill hall aims to provide a suitable venue for that development.
Drummers drumming. A small part of the exhibition
16 November 2019 – 10 January 2020
Six years ago the Gallery staged one of its most popular and most imaginative exhibitions. The 78 tiny all knitted figures that act out the words of the Twelve Days of Christmas amazed visitors and set many of them reciting the lines about what their true love gave to them on each of those days of Christmas.
The eight ladies knitting who produced the exhibition are: Jeanne Carr, Catherine Holland, Shirley Crosby, Alison Tyas, Joyce Elliot, Jacqui Lewington, Betty Beesley and Janet Lillywhite. The eight came forward in response to an article in Settle Community News and their work has subsequently been displayed elsewhere in Settle after its initial appearance in the gallery. The story of the twelve days and its creators formed part of our tenth anniversary celebration exhibition at the Folly this summer and it seemed appropriate to reunite the exhibition with its first home for the 2019 Christmas exhibition.
The full story of the twelve days and it relation with other exhibitions was captured in this board from our tenth anniversary exhibition.
Settle flagmakers
7 September – 15 November 2019
Peter Osborne first learnt to paint and draw as a boy with the bird artist Rowland Green. After two degrees, the second in Art History at the Courtauld Institute, he worked in art schools eventually becoming Head of the Blackburn School of Art and Design. He is moved by the sad sight of fine old barns sinking into decay; this exhibition of watercolours was a result.
The exhibition documented the state of out-barns in Bowland mainly in the area of Tatham Fells.
These old barns are reaching their end. Unwanted and abandoned, these lovely remains of an old way of farming life are still an important part of our heritage and of our landscape. But, Peter asks: “Who will act to save them?”
A few out-barns are well-maintained by careful farmers, as indeed are nearly all barns near road or farmstead. These latter can be used for storage of vehicles or equipment. For out-barns things are different; approachable only by path, track or just rough ground, their only use is for sheep to find occasional shelter. Such minimal use does not justify the cost to struggling farmers of re-roofing and other repair. Decay in roof timbers quickly leads to the slippage of roofing slabs. Ingress of water hastens decay and, in turn, seeps into, splits and cracks the walls.
The watercolours are the result of an effort, on long walks over field and fell, to record what is left of our ancient barns. As well as being essentially accurate depictions of their state, they are also affected by a sadness at seeing them so, particularly in their landscape importance. Almost every path in the area is enlivened by one of these features, built in the local stone by the superb craftsmen of our villages in the past.
Catalogue of Giclee Prints: O.S. 1. Starkers Barn looking towards the Lake District. 667626
- New Close Barn 648629
- Small barn under Greenbank 644619
- New Close from North West 646636
- Middle Barn. Towards Gragareth 652631
- Tunstall House Barn from the North 654668
- Fall Barn from S.E. 665628
- Fall Barn from N.W. ..
- Holmes Barn 657620
- Middle Barn, from East as 5.
- Tunstall House Barn, towards Gragareth as 6.
- Barn by Bridleway from Ashleys 626682
- Rantree Fold Barn 658648
- Demolition of barn under Brackenbottom 657648
- Holmes Barn as 9.
- Interior, New Close as 4.
- Crow Gill Barn in Snow 642654
- Bent Close 650653
- Ruined Barn by Footpath from Lowgill Lane 642655
- Willy Close Barn towards Bowland Forest 673651
- Barn by Clearbeck 624681
- Green Hall Barn 667653
- Far Holme 647653
- Barn Remains near Haw Wood 641660
- Barn by Coat Bank Coppice 618693
- Mewith Barn …………
- Remains of Low House Barn 652635
- Higher Craggs 668645
- Creams Barn 630663
- Barn Remains below Park House 637664
31 Helks Wood Barn 646654
- Small barn at Whiteray 665622
- Green Hall Barn as 22
- Fall Barn, towards Lythe as 7.
- Swans Wood 658632
- Starkers from West as 1
- Holmes from Dixons as 9
- Swans Track 658632
- On Ashleys bridleway 626684
- Barn at Mewith
Watercolours:
i.Stirk Close ii. Falls Barn (Botton)
iii. Fall Barn (Lythe) from Greenbank
iv New Barn, Hindburn Headwaters
NOTE FROM THE ARTIST
PRINTS AND WATERCOLOURS
Given the slight possibility of damp in the telephone box, most images have been displayed as giclee prints. These may be purchased. Please send a letter enclosing the catalogue number(s) of print(s) required and a £10 note per print, I will then post a print to your address. My address is: Clearbeck House, Tatham, Lancaster, LA2 8PJ.
7 July to 6 September 2019
at the Folly Museum, Victoria Street, Settle BD24 9EY
Ten years ago, in the summer of 2009, the world was starting to come to terms with the previous year’s global financial crash that threatened the deepest recession since the 1930s. The years of austerity still lay ahead, but for a brief time a former BT telephone box on the Green in Settle managed to create a few headlines with the opening of the world’s smallest art gallery (probably).
Guinness (the book of records that is) would not give official recognition to the claim to be the world’s smallest, so the Gallery turned to another brewer and took a leaf out of the Carlsberg advertising book by adding (probably) to our claim to be the world’s smallest art gallery.
Over the past decade we have gone from strength to strength with a remarkable range of exhibitions. International artists have risen to challenge of showing their work in a box that can only accommodate a couple of visitors at a time, and so too have local school students. We’ve had moth photographs and the all-knitted twelve days of Christmas, and of course Brian May – twice.
The story of our first decade was recorded in a special exhibition that went on show throughout this summer at the Folly Museum in Settle, just a few hundred yards down the road from the Gallery.
’10 Years of the Gallery on the Green’ was an exhibition celebrating our first ten years, with displays from our many artists from all over the world, reflections on what it meant to them, to our visitors and to Settle.
Here are some of the boards that went to make up the Folly exhibition, alongside some examples of the works we have shown, including the all knitted twelve days of Christmas; our visitor books; comments from exhibitors; and examples of the media coverage.
The exhibition boards
