Laing Art Gallery Reviews Summary

Gallery Exhibitions

Pros:

• "I had a great time walking around the gallery with my 8yo enjoying the vivid creations of Glenn Brown along with the regular collection."
• "Visited the Pre Raphaelite and British Impressionist exhibition."
• "Heard the Whistler exhibition had opened and HAD to take a look!! Absorbing insight to another artist who challenged Victorian art sensibilities."
• "The WOW watercolours and Challenging Convention exhibitions were fantastic."
• "Visited the Victoria and Albert watercolours exhibition and enjoyed it very much."
• "Great free gallery, the paintings by local artists are worth seeing and they also have a great collection of local glass through the ages."
• "Small but impressive Art gallery, plenty to see with art from a variety of different movements on display."

Cons:

• "A bit disappointing. Large areas taken up with paying exhibition, cafe, children's activity zones."
• "They have one room on the top floor that has seasonal art exhibits but I heard they are not worth 7 pounds."
• "Disappointed by Lindisfarne gospel exhibition. Apart from the introductory audio visual, hardly any pictures of the actual gospel."
• "Having spent £14 each to see the Lindisfarne Gospels - it was somewhat disappointing to only see one page from such an exceptional manuscript."
• "I do like this gallery but I was quite dissatisfied with the Alice in wonderland exhibition."
• "But after a couple of visits there's no point going back as it's quite small."
• "Free entry (limited art on show) but charge applied for exhibitions."

Cafe and Food

Pros:

• "The cafe has a coffee and cake deal for around £6 and there were lovely sculptures and artwork to see whilst eating too!"
• "There's a great cafe! Get there early for a bacon stottie!"
• "A lovely cafe, and friendly staff."
• "The cafe is also great. Staff are great and the cakes are that good one slice is not enough."
• "The Laing has a great cafe on the ground floor."
• "Tea room offers a good space to reflect on the sights over a lovely slice of lemon drizzle cake and a cuppa!"
• "The café is also a very nice place to meet up for a cup of coffee or bite to eat."

Cons:

• "I absolutely can’t recommend this cafe for gluten free diners."
• "Just a shame the cafe provides industrial type food, from a large french multinational (Sodexo Prestige), instead of local cheese and other products."
• "I used to really like the food in the cafe but on the last visit was very disappointed with the food."
• "The cafe is a tired and dispiriting place and too expensive for the quality of fare."
• "The gift shop is a rip off, the prices at the cafe are not much better hence we didn't bother eating or drinking there."
• "In the cafe, at 12.30, had run out of lots of things in, not a huge menu."
• "Cafe staff probably the most lack luster I have seen."

Facilities and Accessibility

Pros:

• "The building itself is stunning, with some gorgeous architecture inside and out."
• "There is pay and display on street parking nearby that is reasonably priced."
• "Gift shop and toilets available."
• "Toilets are clean, old-school and (importantly) open to anyone."
• "Free entry, decent facilities and wheelchair accessible. Pretty good."
• "The staff were lovely and very helpful."
• "Staff were all friendly and helpful."

Cons:

• "I was disappointed to be asked to pay £1 for a map.... I declined. Not too sure I'll return."
• "Not enough staff."
• "I am in a wheelchair and the lift was not working on the day we visited but the staff were super helpful."
• "It seemed undirected - we walked in and wandered around without seeing any obvious pathway to take in order to cover the whole gallery."
• "But I was disappointed to see the below explanation of the wallsend yard stating La Hacienda being a tanker when in fact it is a cargo ship."
• "The lady at the reception was so friendly, and she informed me that it was free but I had to pay £10 to see the new Egyptian exhibit."
• "It is a missed educational opportunity and I would not bother taking children to it."

Art and Exhibits

Pros:

• "I loved this art gallery. Starting from the beautiful building's architecture, the exhibitions, the shop and the café."
• "Excellent range of paintings covering many famous north east artists from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries."
• "The gallery is a place of calm and beauty in the busy city centre of Newcastle, it also exhibits my favourite painting - Isabella and her pot of Basil by William Holman Hunt."
• "Lovely light, bright art gallery."
• "A stunning building and a stunning gallery, you'll find many a piece in here that will catch your eye."
• "Very interesting gallery with paintings by J.W. Waterhouse, Harold Knight, Stanley Spencer, Burne-Jones and Duncan Grant."
• "A well appointed gallery with a great mix of art from pre Raphaelite to modern."

Cons:

• "Watercolours from the Royal collection- not really my thing."
• "A shame more effort was not taken to display other pages."
• "This gallery is perhaps on the small side for a city the size of Newcastle."
• "I only ever go to an Art gallery to look at the older paintings. I will never go to an Art gallery to look at modern works as I just don't see what others see in them."
• "It is such a pity that the gift shop did not have any postcards of Glenn Brown's paintings."
• "I was initially confused in one gallery which had a Pre-Raphaelite Burne-Jones painting next to a Frank Auerbach portrait."
• "It was fascinating but l was staggered and felt let down to read that the authors and artists works were created by their imagination as they had not visited Egypt."