New exhibition by leading North East artist John Peace set to open in South Shields

The exhibition – entitled Tyne & Tide – opens on November 13 2021 and will feature around 80 works all drawn and painted throughout the North-East and spanning more than six decades of Peace’s life.

Peace studied at the South Shields School of Art from 1949-51, before gaining a place at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and had a lifelong career in painting, as well as teaching art, and produced hundreds of paintings.

Many of his paintings captured the landscape and aspects of social life in the changing region around him and his career was deeply influenced and shaped by his time in South Shields.

This exhibition, the first since Peace died in 2017, brings together a significant selection of some of his finest work – many depicting the region’s coast and rivers, includes paintings of South Tyneside and Sunderland.Geoff Woodward, Museum Manager says “This exhibition provides a unique opportunity to see many of John Peace’s best paintings, including those owned by his family, alongside a number of loans from private collectors.”

South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, in Ocean Road, holds extensive collections of local art portraying the area by local artists.

The art collection dates from 1873 when the former Mechanics Institute building reopened as South Shields' first free public library.

The Museum today occupies the whole of the former library building and the fine art collection consists of approximately 500 items.