Latest News

Draw at Castlegate is now live; a celebration of the art of drawing from eight artists spanning genre, age and career profile. All works may be seen HERE and even in these times, we've fully hung the exhibition and had a video produced of the show installed, viewable HERE. We miss opening the gallery door to a new exhibition, hopefully this goes some way to provide a consolation, we hope you enjoy it.

It's a tough time for many of us right now and especially those in the charity sector, where funding has all but disappeared. So, from now until the start of our next exhibition on 21st May, we will donate 25% of all gallery profits from ANY sales to the Rainbow Trust, helping support the families of children with serious or terminal illnesses.

Well, it's not possible to rehang the gallery and welcome folks through the doors as was planned, so we've electronically rehung the gallery with a collection of some of our favourite works in stock as well as some client-favourite names; All may be seen HERE. We've included names such as Sheila Fell, Alice Campbell, John Bellany, Norman Cornish, Ceri Allen, Michael Bennett amongst many others.

The wonderful unspoilt building that is Castlegate House may now be physically temporarily closed, its impressive red heavy door without its usual "open" sign, but the gallery is far from closed. As an art gallery in western Cumbria, abutting the fringes of one of the most astounding national parks in the world, we're used to working "remotely".

Well, in a world where for a short period of time we may all be spending more time in our homes, we thought it timely to tell you all about some of the new art works we've brought into the gallery in the last few days, and which can gild the nest that little bit more; all may be seen HERE

After a return from the hectic bubble-world that is the hugely enjoyable London Art Fair, we now have a body of new work into the gallery from the talented Helen Fryer, all of which may be seen HERE. We've taken the opportunity to have a full rehang with works now on show by John Bellany and Sheila Fell, amongst others.

Firstly, a happy and prosperous new year to you all, may it prove a little more settled than it has been for many (most) during 2019.  Our first major gallery event of the year takes place in the very near future; The London Art Fair opens its doors on the evening of the 21st January and runs until Sunday 26th. This will be our fifth consecutive appearance and we've acquired, and held back, many pieces, including five ceramic works by Grayson Perry (RA), a rare oil by Frank Auerbach, an amazing painting by Hughie O'Donoghue (RA) and two paintings by the late John Bellany (RA), including one of the very rare 1967 series inspired by his life-changing trip to the site of the Buchenwald concentration camp earlier that same year.

It's been an incredible two weeks in the sphere of Norman Cornish. As with our late-summer centenary exhibition, the commemorations continue with a major exhibition at the wonderful Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle. If you can get there, do so, it's on until February.  Wonderful reviews of the exhibition and commentary on Norman and his life and work appeared on BBC Radio 4 The Today Programme, The Times and Telegraph to name but a few.

A great deal of new work has arrived in-gallery in recent times, so we've rehung and opened the doors (both physical and internet wise) to our Autumn-Winter exhibition, an ever-changing showing of both Contemporary and Modern British (20th century) art plus our usual abundance of ceramics. All may be seen HERE.  We have works by Sarah Bellwood, an object lesson in painting; a body of work from Sarah that brings a whole new palette into her painting and we truly believe is the best work she's ever produced.

We are thrilled to announce that today we are launching The Castlegate Prize, a brand new national open art competition with a first prize of £10,000. We are delighted to reveal that in addition to ourselves, we have three judges; Eileen Cooper (RA, OBE), first female Keeper of the Royal Academy in its history; famous writer and broadcaster Stuart Maconie and John Moores prize winner Martin Greenland.

We're only a week away from packing up works for the British Art Fair at the Saatchi Gallery, London; doors will open on Thursday 3rd October and run until Sunday 6th. The event is one of the best in the London fair calendar focusing mainly (although not exclusively) on British 20th century works. A selection of the works we'll be exhibiting maybe seen HERE.

Our (late-ish) summer selection exhibition is now online and will appear as if by magic in-gallery over the coming days, all may be seen HERE. This will be followed in the coming weeks by a new wonderful selection of work by Alex Hain, accompanying a new short film we've had produced of Alex; more to follow on that in a few weeks time.

A quick reminder that our major exhibition, Norman Cornish – A Centenary, opens it’s doors at 10am this Saturday 6th July, with a reception 12-2pm (gallery open 10-5pm as usual), the exhibition is viewable HERE  The exhibition is a collection of never-before-seen works, curated directly from the family/estate of the artist and is a true social history record of a working class community of the 1960s and 70s, now all but lost.

Norman Cornish - A Centenary, is now live online and may be viewed HERE. A limited 200 edition publication of the seventy-page catalogue is available to purchase from the gallery with the e-version able to be viewed through the above or through this LINK. A quite superb video (once you get past our initial brief contribution!), with John Cornish talking about his father and his work/inspirations may be viewed HERE.

The first of two news items this coming week, firstly (this) about our imminent appearance at the Saatchi Gallery, London, then a quick message about Norman Cornish.  Castlegate House Gallery will be exhibiting at FFS (Fair For Saatchi) from 26th to 30th June, one of twenty-five selected galleries forming part of what should be a really exciting and interesting art fair.

Our rather exciting Spring exhibition is now hung in-gallery and displayed online and may be viewed HERE. It features four artists; WIlliam Reinsch, Alice Campbell, Chris Rigby and Helen Tabor. 

A reminder that we open the doors to the solo exhibition for Ceri Allen this Saturday, 13th April at 10am. There will be a reception from 12-2pm where you can meet and chat with Ceri, with the gallery open until 5pm as usual. The full exhibition listing may be seen HERE. Ceri is one of Cumbria’s most inventive contemporary artists, many of you within the county may know her from her exhibitions of works at the Lakes Artists Society each year.

An exhibition of new paintings by Ceri Allen is now live and may be viewed HERE together with a page-turning e-catalogue which may be viewed HERE.  This is a wonderful new body of work by one of Cumbria's most well respected contemporary artists. Ceri's work is inescapably a comment on modern society, one in which we're more connected and yet arguably more isolated than ever before.

As we head towards our next solo exhibition, for Ceri Allen in April, we've collected a body of new work for the gallery from both emerging talent and much more established names.  We have works from the twentieth century from Sheila Fell (RA), Bill Bell and John Bellany (RA) together with work from two of our young stable of artists, namely Alice Campbell and Alex Hain.

We're very proud and excited to announce that we'll be working with the highly regarded artist, Richard Cook. Born in Cheltenham in 1947, Richard studied at St Martins followed by the Royal Academy of Arts. Tutored by Leon Kossoff (an artist who in our opinion can do little if anything wrong), Richard was to share a studio with Kossoff in the 1970s before moving to Cornwall where he's worked and lived ever since.