An exhibition history of Victorian Leeds

Abstract

An Exhibition History of Victorian Leeds provides, for the first time, a contextualised account of the cultural history of this major British city through its nineteenth-century public exhibitions. It situates the city's relationship with the display of fine and decorative arts, industrial culture and the sciences in its regional, national and international contexts and establishes its significance to the history of British art. Too often positioned as minor provincial rehearsals of the Great Exhibition of 1851, this body of research demonstrates that networks of donation and display were firmly established in Leeds before 1851. These networks continued to develop and extend according to local initiatives and priorities, alongside a keen engagement with the latest metropolitan and international activities.