Today Chris and I went to Liverpool on a little day out for his birthday, and he was kind enough to humour me to go to the Tate while we were there! I had a brilliant time; it was freezing in Liverpool especially at the dock but it was so worth it. It cost £6 for the Alice in Wonderland exhibition and then there were the ‘This is Sculpture’ exhibitions which have been on since 2009 but as I’ve never been to Tate Liverpool I’ve never seen them. The series of This is Sculpture exhibitions included a collaboration between the Tate Liverpool curators and Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and others such as Philip Treacy. Duffy’s exhibition included artworks responding to text and English language which were interesting and there was an interactive display to create your own original poem.

I loved Philip Treacy’s exhibition; there were pieces from his private collection alongside specially selected works from Tate’s collection and the most interesting pieces I found were the photographs of his own works of art, his hats. The most striking and beautiful part of the exhibition was the enormous shelf which spanned almost the entire room, which held his collection of wooden hat blocks, in every shape and size you can imagine. There were also works by Andy Warhol, including a few little known pieces that I personally had never seen before, so it was interesting to see some lesser-known works that inspired Treacy himself.

However, the main attraction was definitely the Alice in Wonderland exhibition. I thought it was absolutely fascinating throughout, seeing different artists’ responses to the book in non-traditional ways. There were paintings which Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) had visited which had influenced him as a writer and as an artist which were really interesting to see his development of surrealism. There was a huge collection of the book illustrated by many artists around the world and it was great to see how people in different countries interpreted the words. There were also a lot of photographs of the Liddell sisters which I enjoyed because Dodgson supposedly modelled Alice on Alice Liddell, however it is Edith Liddell who looks more like the traditional ‘Alice’ we all know from the many, many adaptations – she has a beautiful soft face and golden curly hair whereas Alice had a sharply cut dark brown bob (seen below). I suppose ‘Edith in Wonderland’ doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it! I really loved this exhibition and definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to see some more original pieces rather than the well known works of Disney, etc.