More visitors for the Parsonage

Good news from the Brontë Parsonage Museum. In Keighley News, today, January 18:

Thousands of people attended an exhibition with a modern take on the Brontës.

Since September, the Brontë Parsonage Museum, in Haworth, has seen a surge in the number of visitors who have taken a modern artistic look at the village's famous literary family.

Former Turner Prize nominee Cornelia Parker's exhibition, Brontëan Abstracts, attracted a different audience to the museum's usual visitors, said director Alan Bentley.

The exhibition, which has just closed, showed images of Brontë artefacts taken with electron microscope imaging technology.

Mr Bentley said: "It's been very successful. As it was a modern exhibition, it brought in younger people and aspiring artists who wouldn't normally come here for that. We aren't used to Cornelia's modern artist perspective so it has been very interesting and made us look at our collections from a completely different point of view.

"I'm pleased the museum's tradition of inspiring people through the works of the Brontës has continued."

For 41 years the Brontë family lived in the building which is now the Parsonage Museum. The museum aims to attract international artists, authors and film-makers to interpret the lives of the Brontës in new ways.

Andrew McCarthy, Parsonage deputy director, said: "Exhibiting work by such a prominent artist has been very exciting and an historic opportunity for the museum.

"The problem with monuments is they can become caricatures and Brontëan Abstracts has challenged some of our preconceptions."

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontë Parsonage Museum, In the News